The Liberal Party is alarmed to see that a severe drought has been declared by the Environment Agency along the south coast from Cornwall through Devon, Dorset, Somerset, East Sussex and West Sussex.
This autumn has remained unusually dry despite claims that the latest El Niño cycle would bring an end to the parched conditions with above average rainfall. According to one news report the UK will now need above average rainfall as far as next Easter to replenish water reserves.
The Liberal Party believes that the opportunity to ensure sustainable water reserves has been squandered by the failure to ensure that privatised water companies were making the maximum effort to contain leakage and waste from within their network in advance of any protracted dry period.
We again call for the water industry to be brought back into public ownership to ensure all income is reinvested in the service and environmental protection, and not passed as dividends to overseas owners unaffected by UK domestic water restrictions.