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CITY WATER DEBATE 2026

Bakers’ Hall, London, Wednesday 18^th March

Hosted by the Worshipful Company of Water Conservators

The UK is running out of water. Population and economic growth combined with climate change mean that consumption is increasingly outstripping supply. We are already abstracting more water from the environment than is sustainable. In England alone the Environment Agency has estimated that there will be shortfall of five billion litres a day (or 35% of current supply) by 2050.

To meet this shortfall the government projects major reductions in per capita consumption,  increased efficiency in the use of water across all sectors, reduced leakage and a significant programme of new reservoirs. Are these steps deliverable? Have we the mechanisms to make them happen?

We are grateful to David Lloyd Owen, Court Assistant for these debate notes.

Contributions and observations are collated by themes.

The debate was held under the Chatham House Rule.

Comments in square brackets are added to provide context where this is useful.

The debate was chaired by Colin Drummond, Past Master of the Company.

The speakers were:

Alan Lovell, Chair, the Environment Agency

Paul Leinster, Chair, Water Resources East

Nicci Russell, CEO, Waterwise.

Bukky Bird, Group Sustainability Director, Barratt Redrow

Ruth Jefferson, CEO, Wessex Water

There has been a forty-year gap in reservoir construction. At the same time, England’s population has grown by 16 million since 1989. Water use per capita is twice what it was sixty years ago (and with more people) and the chance of halving this use again are minimal. Water planning is restricted to local plans and Ofwat only considers resources in relation to local plans. Ofwat does not appear to appreciate the impact of future population growth. Again, drainage and sewage planning is based on historic growth, which does not reflect current or future growth.

A 5 billion litre per day shortfall is forecast for England by 2055. In fact, this will be at least 6 billion litres a day due to growth in demand from other users [such as agriculture, industry and data servers]. This is a 35-40% potential shortfall in terms of available resources. At the same time, there is a real need to reduce abstraction to maintain [and indeed, to restore] river flow and health. There is no reason why data centres should be built in water scarce areas such as South and East England. This needs to be properly understood and addressed.

Regulation is all very well, yet it is investment that really matters, after some 20-30 years of underinvestment. The economic regulator has prioritised price over quality. The average water bill is now 70p per person per day. There is a limited feasibility for using tariffs to regulate water demand on their own. When annual household electricity bills went above £1,600, they started to have an impact on consumer behaviour.

Water scarcity is not clearly explained to customers and appeals for customers to adopt demand management are not usually working at the present. We need to explore the cost of water scarcity. For example, hosepipe bans work here because they do get the message across about water shortages in a way that people understand. So, communicate effectively to reinforce better customer behaviour. We still need more positive examples of water efficiency, especially in linking water efficiency to electricity savings.

It remains difficult to communicate the benefits of water reuse. Communicate with customers about things that they can identify with such as ways to reduce water flows in a household. For example, Severn Trent found that a radio campaign to market demand management was most effective. Australia has done well in driving down water demand during drought periods. However, once the drought is over, water use usually “rockets back up”.

Agricultural runoffs are also increasing nitrate concentrations in groundwaters. This starting to drive up water treatment costs. Pumped storage reservoirs (Rutland and Abingdon for example) will have higher nutrient levels due to loadings from the groundwater they abstract.

There is also a practical issue when reused (grey) water when applied to farmland is classified as a waste.

Farmers are starting to look anew at water storage. For example, once the farm pond was a traditional feature of farming. Anglian Water has dedicated catchment advisors to work with farms on certain tributaries for managing nutrients flows.

These rising nutrient levels mean we need to have more nutrient treatment before it enters the supply system, and this carries its costs. Nutrient discharges from property development cannot be disregarded, for example the impact of soil disturbance during a site’s development. In contrast post treatment effluents [from well managed STWs] can in fact reduce a river’s nutrient loading. More effective non-potable water standards are needed to enable water reuse as for example, greywater use in agriculture can be inhibited by its classification as a waste [for example, a lower nutrient loading than for applied fertilisers].

More predictable planning is needed, along with more stable regulation. Make planning more streamlined, it is currently not fit for purpose. Planning officers can also impose higher standards where they see fit.

Currently [with some significant exceptions], water supplies come from within the individual water company’s operating areas. By 2040, 50% of water supplies may need come from outside company areas [to address regional shortfalls]. Supplies cannot be addressed by companies alone; everybody has to be involved to meet these targets.

The White (England) and Green (Wales) Papers [HMG and the WAG’s respective responses to the Cunliffe Report] did put water efficiency as a higher priority yet as such things stand, water efficiency does not matter that much at the Government level in practice. The White Paper is seen as being “moderately encouraging” although its chief emphasis is seen to be on cleaning up waters rather than on water resources.

For developers, managing water demand is a highly complicated business. Designing new builds to be at 105 litres per capita per day does appear to be widely accepted and applied. There is still a need to go further. Yet this does not address older housing stock. 20 years ago, companies had a piecemeal and erratic attitude towards customer water unit retrofits. While still a concern, “vast progress” is being made by companies and much good work by all the companies here.

Rain is not necessarily our friend these days. It used to be steady and predictable. Drizzle comes to mind. Now it appears to be either drought or flood. Last summer’s drought was a close-ran thing. The wet winter has seen reservoirs properly recharged. In January-February 2026, less than 400 homes were flooded in England, and this marks real progress compared with some years ago. In floods, the loss of the water supply can have an even greater impact than the flooding itself. For example, the Gloucestershire floods of 2007 saw supplies halted for up to three weeks. For some, this brought about a return to a “medieval way of life” with pretty well no access to water above what you could obtain for food and drink.

A huge amount of water and energy goes into treating all municipal water to a potable standard even when most is used as non-potable water. At the same time, 1.6% of rain in the UK is actively captured by water utilities [the picture in England is notably different] and this needs to be better managed.

Water use monitoring is still under-deployed. During Covid smart meters revealed that closed businesses still had a continual water flow. We are behind compared with where we ought to be on deploying smart metering, yet we can catch up.

The technologies we need to address water shortfalls already exist. Satellites are proving useful in detecting leakage and in turn, insurance for leaks is now available. Good leak detectors now being developed and deployed.

Need to focus on interventions which can achieve tangible outcomes on a shorter timescale. What is the cost of not doing things that need to be done? At the biggest end of the scale, the Thames Tideway Tunnel was “just about” on time and on budget and so it is a good model for emulation for similar major projects.

In essence, many challenges still need to be addressed.

The behaviour of some water companies has damaged customer trust, impacting efforts to manage demand. Trust needs to be rebuilt to change this.

Regulators have to be ready to enable standards to rise. It can be easy to be ahead of the regulations as it stands.

We don’t have proper, budgeted plans for 2050, let alone for 2100. The current 25-year plans don’t properly take into account for example, the need for treatment.

The importance of an effective integrated approach to water management has to be seen to be done.