Have Your Voice Heard: How Should Water Companies Supply Water in the Future?

Water companies across the country are currently working up their plans on how they are going to meet the need to supply water for decades to come.  How do we ensure we have enough water for people, reduce water demand, including fixing more of those leaks, and leave enough water for our fish and the environment to be able to thrive?  A big challenge.  And a big test that will define how we protect our rivers, lakes, wetlands, and groundwater in the future.  What priority should be given to ensure the environment gets its fair share?

These plans are currently in draft form (the final plans will come at the end of this year) and water companies want to know what their customers think.  We’re all customers of water companies.  It’s vital they hear from as many of us as possible.

We want water companies to know, they must do a lot more to protect the environment, to leave enough water for our fish and wildlife, and for us to enjoy our fishing.

As part of the Blueprint for Water Coalition, the Angling Trust along with a number of environmental groups concerned about our rivers, still waters, and wildlife, have launched an e-action to help you to respond to your local water company and push them to do more to protect the environment.  We’ve provided a quick and easy way for you to let your water company know that protecting our waters and wildlife should be a top priority in their plans.  You can take this action in as little as two minutes, or if you want to delve deeper into the issue, we have provided a more detailed version, which will take about 10 minutes to complete.  You can have your say here.

We are at a critical moment when it comes to water. The 2022 drought highlighted the fragility of our current water system. Most of us experienced water use restrictions but the environment was on the front line again, bearing the brunt of both the weather and the abstractions made to meet our ever increasing demand. Once again, we saw chalk streams drying up; fish and other aquatic wildlife being killed; algal blooms and desiccated wetlands.

Things will get worse if we don’t do something. The latest estimates are that we face a shortfall of over 4,250 million litres of water a day in England if we want to have secure water supplies and a healthy environment.

To accompany the e-action, we have co-authored a blog, Running out of water: don’t hang the environment out to dry, on the Wildlife and Countryside Link website.