'If we don’t act we'll be looking at water rationing like in the Mediterranean' - Minister explains why Government will force through reservoir plans

Environment minister Emma Hardy warned that could be the situation facing the UK within a decade if urgent action is not taken to force through enough new reservoirs to meet future demand.

Miss Hardy said Britain would face Mediterranean-style water rationing by the mid-2030s without a raft of new artificial lakes in which to store drinking water.

UK water companies have committed to building eight such lakes by 2050, including one in the West Midlands. No location has been identified - but it seems likely that the Government will take the decision out of the hands of local planners, as it beefs up its powers to speed up the process.

The Government is concerned that in the past, such projects have become bogged down in drawn-out planning wrangles, often meeting with resistance from locals. Which is why Miss Hardy's boss, Environment Secretary Steve Reed, has intervened to take the decisions about two new reservoirs in Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire out of the hands of the relevant local authorities.

By declaring the projects 'nationally significant', it will now be government ministers rather than local councillors who decide where these projects will be built. And these are unlikely to be the last, with the Government planning new legislation which will see all future reservoirs falling in the same category.

The Fen Reservoir project between Chatteris and March in Cambridgeshire is set to supply more than 19 million gallons of water a day to 250,000 homes, and to be completed in 2036. The Lincolnshire reservoir, south of Sleaford, will provide up to 36 million gallons a day for up to 500,000 homes, operational by 2040.

Miss Hardy warned that if the Government did not take urgent action, the country would be on the brink of crisis within a few years.

“We have a problem in our country where we’re not going to have all of the drinking water that we need by the mid-2030s because we simply haven’t built the reservoirs required,” she said.

“That’s because the last government failed to get the infrastructure and the planning process was just way too complicated and bureaucratic.

“So what we’re doing is we’re taking control of building the reservoirs from the local planning authorities, putting that power into the hands of the Secretary of State so he can power through and deliver these, because if we don’t, by the 2030s, we’re going to be looking at water rationing like we have in the Mediterranean and that’s unacceptable."

Italian and Spanish authorities are among those which restricted water use last year, with Catalonia facing a drought emergency when water reserves fell below 16 per cent.

According to the Environment Agency, bot the North West and North East regions of England saw their driest start to a calendar year since 1929, while the country as a whole endured its driest February to April period since 1956.

Miss Hardy added that the new reservoirs would also allow the creation of tens of thousands of new homes, as well as making sure that everybody has 'the drinking water that they desperately need'.

She said a record £104 billion was being invested in the water sector, with the money coming from the private sector.

“This will help to reduce leaks from pipes by up to 17 per cent, so that’s another really important action that’s needed just to make sure that everybody has the water that they need, because it’s not just about building homes as well," she said.

“We need water for growth, there are projects up and down the country where businesses are crying out for extra water that they need to make sure that they can get on with growing our economy, so this is a really important announcement and it’s a beautiful win for nature as well.”

Miss Hardy said water bills had already gone up, and she recognised that many were unhappy about that.

“I can completely understand why people are furious and angry about that, because it’s like with any issue that you find – if you fix a problem when you first notice it, it doesn’t cost you as much as if you leave it to get worse and worse and then you try and fix it, and that’s what we’ve had under the Conservatives, they left the problems to get worse and worse.”

As well as the lakes in the West Midlands, Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire, reservoirs are also planned for Oxfordshire, Somerset, Suffolk, Kent and East Sussex, creating the potential to supply 147 million gallons of extra water per day.