Leader

Is this drought going to be worse than 1976?

In August 1976, Denis Howell was appointed as minister for drought, tasked with persuading Britons to use less water after the driest summer in 200 years. Among the publicity stunts marking his appointment was an exhortation from the prime minister to perform a rain dance and Howell telling reporters he planned to do his bit by sharing baths with his wife.

Famously, it took just days for September downpours to arrive with a vengeance, leading to a very wet autumn / winter 1976 and to Howell being unofficially rebranded as minister for rain.

It’s a stark reminder that while over this summer we were routinely reassured that things were not yet as bad as 50 years ago, fast forward to October and the comparisons don’t look as soothing.

In fact, the messages coming from the typically sober spokespeople of the water sector over the past few weeks has been increasingly dramatic. In an interview with The Times, South East Water chief executive John Halsall even raised the spectre of standpipes returning to Britain’s streets. I was astonished such an admission passed largely without comment in a media landscape that rarely misses an opportunity to lay into water companies.

It still seems unlikely that Halsall’s warning will actually come to pass but with Ardingly reservoir in his patch down to under 20% capacity, we have come scarily close to a ‘day zero’ scenario of taps actually running dry.

So, what lessons can be learnt both in the immediate and long term?

Firstly, we must avoid wasting time on recriminations over why we haven’t built a reservoir in this country for 40 years and just concentrate on removing any obstacles to constructing the next generation. This should be a primary focus of the government’s next ‘vision’ for water and its guidance to regulators.

In the meantime, we need to talk about hosepipe bans. And, for that matter, we need to talk about how we talk about hosepipe bans.

It’s clear that a much more targeted approach to water restrictions is required, focussing in on those households we know are likely to display the biggest shift in demand. Water companies tell me that even during the peak of the heatwave, the average consumption of occupants of flats and terraced houses was not wildly different to usual. In semi-detached homes there was a much clearer shift - but it was in detached homes that the real spike was seen.

With the increasing proliferation of smart meters we have the data to show where targeted interventions will have the most impact. That data should inform a new approach to water saving going forward – and not necessarily just when the mercury rises.

Those detached homes with bountiful gardens to water, pools to fill and multiple cars to wash have been identified as the problem, so water companies should not be afraid to tell them.

The industry has already tried to move away from the term hosepipe ban towards the vaguer temporary usage ban, or TUB. Can I suggest a subtle rebranding to a ‘Hot TUB ban’ might get the message across clearer as to why the behaviour being targeted is so superfluous. While we’re at it, I would actually be open to policy costs on energy bills being transferred to hot tub users, but that might be going too far.

The weather forecasts indicate that winter 2026/27 will bring enough rain to refill reservoirs but clearly prolonged periods of hot weather are here to stay and behaviours will need to adapt to account for that. Ofwat’s Let’s Save Water Campaign is a laudable attempt to do that but it is an intentionally blanket approach when we really need to start getting into the specifics.

In the 1970s, ministers were promoting shared baths as ways of saving water. Fast forward half a century and it’s the households with more bathrooms than occupants we need to be targeting. I have hunch this could be one area where the tide of public opinion is for once behind the water sector.