WD News: London could face water rationing “imminently” because of over-abstraction, over-use and wastage through leaking pipes.
Environmentalist James Wallace, chief executive of River Action, has made the warning at a meeting with the Greater London Authority (GLA). He said the chalk streams that feed the capital’s water supply were drying up.
London’s main water supplier Thames Water said there needed to be a national change in how water was used. The company also said it had no plans to ration usage.
At an environment committee meeting about the resilience of London’s water supply, Wallace said many streams in the Chilterns, which feed the water supply to north London, were permanently dry and some were only at 25% of normal flow rates.
“This means that we are going to be seeing rationing of water in north London imminently. We’re not talking 20, 30, 40 years,” he said.
In its annual report published this week, Thames Water said it lost 602.2 million litres a day through leaks in2022-23 based on a three-year rolling average. However, the company’s interim chief executive, Cathryn Ross, told the GLA that one-third of this quantity was actually “unmeasured consumer use” rather than loss through holes in the company’s pipes. She added that rolling out water meters would mean customers could be billed more accurately.
She said the government’s Plan For Water, which aimed to reduce leakages by half by 2050 and lower consumer use from 144 litres per person each day on average to 110 litres – did not go far enough.
Ross said 80% of Thames Water customers already used the government’s target of 110 litres a day but that 20% used a lot more, mostly for watering gardens. She said the company had wanted to ease supply issues by building a 150-billion-litre reservoir in Abingdon, Oxfordshire. The project has faced local opposition.
Ms Ross admitted that many of the company’s pipes were “ageing assets” that should have been replaced but that the cost could not be covered by customers. Thames Water later said that was due to rules around how consumers are charged.
Thames Water, along with other companies, has promised to update its infrastructure to reduce sewage discharges, but it has spent the past few weeks fending off speculation about its financial collapse and nationalisation because of a £14bn debt pile.
Source: BBC News
Image courtesy: PA Media
