Overview
- Baroness Brown of Cambridge proposed block pricing with sharply higher per‑litre charges after a threshold, stressing it is her personal idea rather than the climate committee’s stance.
- The Environment Agency projects a deficit of about 5 billion litres per day by 2055, with new reservoirs expected to meet only around 40% of that gap.
- Ofwat has cleared £104 billion in water‑company investment, with household bills set to rise roughly 36% over five years to fund leakage repairs and pollution reduction.
- Gardening uses an estimated 500 million litres of water daily, only 18% from rain or greywater, and dry spells have triggered surges such as Yorkshire’s extra 80 million litres a day in April.
- Reservoirs are about 65.8% full versus a 77.4% seasonal average, hosepipe bans continue in Yorkshire and parts of the South East, and officials warn next year could see drought without sustained winter rainfall.