Water companies supply the majority of people with their water. Take a look at what they do to conserve water and plan for drought.
News autumn 2011
Water companies in England will shortly be publicly consulting on their draft drought plans. Please visit your water company's website to find out how you can take part.
Water companies in Wales are following a slightly later timetable but will also publicly consult on their draft drought plans in the near future.
Planning for a drought
The Water Act 2003 has made it a statutory requirement for water companies in England and Wales to prepare, maintain and publish drought plans. They must publicly consult on their draft drought plans.
The Environment Agency provides detailed guidelines for water companies on the content of drought plans and timings for the completion of each stage of the process. We will comment on the draft plans as a statutory consultee. They then have to submit their plans to the Secretary of State or the Welsh Government. Following directions from the government, water companies will then publish their final plans. These must be revised within three years and six months from the date of publication and submitted to the Secretary of State or Welsh Government.
We publish a review of all the water company drought plans published and further details and previous reports can be seen by following the link below:
All water companies have arrangements to collect, store and transfer water to cope with normal fluctuations in rainfall. If their resources start to diminish as a result of a drought, a company will implement its drought plan. This plan outlines a series of actions that a water company can take to effectively manage the water resources available during a drought. These actions generally include the following:
- Publicity campaign to increase awareness of the drought situation and reduce water demand
- Hosepipe ban
- Use of emergency river support schemes
- Non-essential use ban drought order
- Emergency drought orders (standpipes, rota cuts and emergency licence variation)
Water UK is the industry association that represents all UK water and wastewater service suppliers at national and European level.
Leakage
Water companies are investing in long-term mains replacement programmes to reduce leakage. Ofwat releases an annual report on leakage figures. They also monitor water companies that fail to meet their targets and work with them to help reduce leakage.
