Britons could be forced to share baths and drink only bottled water if urgent action is not taken to boost the country’s water supply, Environment Secretary Steve Reed has warned in an interview with The Mail on Sunday.
Announcing urgent steps to make it harder to block new reservoirs, Mr Reed said a lack of investment could lead to rationing by the 2030s.
‘You would have to plan when you turned the tap on, or when you had a shower. It happens in some Mediterranean countries already. At certain times of the day their water turns off.
‘We just take it for granted that you can turn on the taps and out will come clean drinking water. We were facing a situation, thanks to the previous government, where that was no longer guaranteed.’
‘We haven’t had a new reservoir in this country for 37 years, even though by the middle of the 2030s the demand for clean drinking water starts to outstrip supply, and we’d be looking at rationing.’
Mr Reed revealed new plans to take on green activists by legislating to limit the number of legal challenges they can bring to stop new reservoirs.
He said building them is vital to achieving growth, but planning rules ‘get in the way’ and decisions are then subject to lengthy and repeated court proceedings.
It can take up to 30 years to get consent for a new reservoir, but Mr Reed wants to have nine built by 2050 – with the first complete by 2029.
Environment Secretary Steve Reed (pictured) has warned that Britons will have to drink only bottled water and share baths unless urgent action is taken to boost the nation’s water supply
Mr Reed unveiled new plans to take on green activists by legislating to limit the number of legal challenges that can be brought against new reservoirs (file photo)
At present, people can make three attempts to obtain permission from the courts to challenge the construction of reservoirs.
Mr Reed wants to change the law to limit this to one attempt for cases that are totally without merit and a maximum of two for the others.
The minister said Labour’s planning reforms will slash red tape and speed up approvals. He also wants to clean up the country’s water.
Mr Reed, the MP for Streatham and Croydon North, fondly recalled going to the seaside as a child: ‘We would go to the West Country, we’d stay in a hotel or B&B, but you’d want to get down to the beach and play in the rock pools and splash around in the water.
‘We all remember those memories, and the frightening thing today is, if you speak to parents, their kids won’t make those same memories if they’re not allowed to go in the water.
In August 1976, Labour Minister for Drought Denis Howell was tasked with persuading the nation to use less water
‘If there is a big red flag flying, that means it’s been contaminated with raw sewage. What a terrible thing to have to say to a child.
‘I would love my legacy to be that we started to clean up the water that had become polluted with record levels of raw sewage. I think that’s a difference we can make. That’s important in politics, that people can see visible change.’
This is not the first time a Labour minister has talked of sharing baths. Back in August 1976, during Britain’s driest summer for 200 years, Denis Howell was made Minister for Drought, charged with persuading the nation to use less water.
He invited reporters to his home in Birmingham, and revealed he was helping rationing by sharing baths with his wife Brenda.
