Severe Drought Declared Across Parts of Southern England
The Environment Agency has declared severe drought in parts of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset and East and West Sussex after months of low rainfall and the hottest summer on record. Wimbleball reservoir on Exmoor stands at 14.9% of capacity and Ardingly in West Sussex at 19.4%, against the roughly 75% the agency expects at this point in the year.
Those two reservoirs are what prompted the change of status, and between them they matter to a lot of households: Wimbleball serves about 300,000 properties across Devon, Somerset and west Dorset, Ardingly about 280,000 customers across the two Sussexes. Both Wimbleball and Colliford in Cornwall are now classed as exceptionally low. Others are not far behind — Roadford in Devon at 36.8%, Burrator at 33.6%, Colliford at 35% and Stithians at 21.9%. South East Water and South West Water have been granted drought orders letting them cut the volume released from reservoirs into rivers by millions of litres a day, and Southern Water has applied for an order covering Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. Ministers have instructed companies to monitor reservoir and river levels daily and tightened water quality checks, and the agency will increase compliance checks on businesses abstracting from rivers. Philip Duffy, its chief executive, framed the ask plainly: “We cannot change the weather, but water companies can act now.”