WATER RATION BRITAIN THREAT

A growing population and increasing demand for water means that the country is as much at risk as the Sahara Desert.

Overcrowded South-east England is already suffering “severe water stress”, putting it in the same bracket as Saudi Arabia, North Africa, India and eastern Australia. But analysts fear that within 20 years a “parched zone” will spread across the country from the Bristol Channel to the Norfolk coast and north of the Midlands.

The grim outlook led to water industry experts predicting that standpipes would become common across large swathes of the nation. Gary Smith, National Secretary for Water at the GMB union, said: “Rationing will depend on the pace of global warming. The next two years could be a crunch time.

“We could see standpipes. The wealthy will be able to insulate themselves to some extent. It will be ordinary families who will be hardest hit. This is about people not having an adequate supply of water.”

The Campaign to Protect Rural England also warned: “Rationing is definitely an option for water companies to take. But they would need to declare drought conditions to do it, and they would need to give us plenty of warning.

“The problem is that water companies do not have a long-term solution and measures like the hosepipe ban are symptomatic of this. There is little doubt there are more severe droughts on the way. With that in mind, we support rationing and better conservation.”

more from the Daily Express (UK)