Britain's ageing dams, aqueducts and canals must be urgently upgraded or lives could be lost in flash floods, the former environment secretary Lord Deben has warned.
The UK is not prepared to cope with more frequent torrential rain or summer droughts as part of a looming water crisis caused by climate change, decades of underinvestment and a continued reliance on Victorian infrastructure, he said.
Writing in Country Life magazine, the Conservative peer, who as John Gummer created the Environment Agency, said the cost of the impending catastrophe “may well be measured in lives”.
He called for a number of measures to prevent “serious flooding”, including a ban on front gardens being paved over for cars, which stops water from draining properly.
As millions of people face a hosepipe ban as the UK swelters under the third heatwave this summer, Lord Deben also criticised the fact that no new reservoir has been built in England for more than 30 years.
And he condemned planned cuts to the Canal & River Trust (CRT), which he said incoming prime minister Andy Burham’s government should step in to halt.
The CRT “needs urgent investment” to repair the ageing infrastructure, he wrote. “Dams, aqueducts and canals need upgrading if their failure is not to threaten whole communities and if they are to play their necessary role in flood prevention. Yet the government is planning to reduce CRT’s budget.
“The cost of that cut may well be measured in lives, as well as in economic loss. It must not be allowed.”
He warned that drier summers, wetter winters, more severe storms and torrential rain are “today’s reality and we need a land-use policy to reflect it. “Serious flooding is inevitable unless previous drainage methods are reversed, slowing the water flow by allowing more to be held in the land.
“Farmers should be enabled to plant trees and hedges appropriately and encouraged to dig and restore farm ponds. Farm reservoirs should become the norm and be part of agricultural permitted development, so they don’t require planning permission.”
Earlier this year, researchers from Newcastle University found that winters in the UK are becoming “significantly wetter” and dramatically increasing flood risks.
They warned that winter rainfall is increasing by around 7 per cent for every degree of global or regional warming – a rate the authors say is happening far faster than most climate models predict, and describe as “really concerning”.
Lord Deben, who is also a former chairman of the UK's independent Committee on Climate Change, also warned that water companies and agriculture had an equal responsibility to clean up the UK’s rivers.
New buildings should also be designed with water conservation in mind, while white goods and everything from shower heads to taps should be installed to meet higher water-saving standards, he said.
He warned there could be “no business as usual” as demand for water is forecast to grow.
Water is not only an essential for life, but a necessity for economic growth and the data centres “that will drive the future economy use huge quantities of water,” he wrote. “Food security depends on water for farmers. In much of the rest of the world, water is even more scarce than it is here and many producers we have relied on for imports will become too water- stressed to supply. In a world where already more than two billion people lack safe drinking water, climate change will exacerbate the problem.”
But he is optimistic a full-blown crisis can be avoided, if the UK’s leaders were prepared to take difficult decisions.
“Despite all that Britain has to do and the huge costs involved, we are truly fortunate. We can have the water we need, at a price we are able to afford, if only we have the determination to secure it,” he writes.
A Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs spokesperson said: “We are taking decisive measures to secure water supplies and meet higher demand, including record levels of infrastructure investment and building nine new reservoirs.
“Our Water White Paper sets out long-term, systematic reforms where assets are properly maintained, and problems can be spotted before they lead to water shortages.”
