What action has been taken since the last drought?

[pdq1]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-17690389

When we had the last drought a few years back urgent action was required so that the same problem would not re-occur. However it has come back with a vengeance now affecting 2/3rds of England.

Is it cost, lack of will, lack of any foresight and planning or what? If there is someone in government responsible should they get the chop? What is the best solution to get us out of this mess so that the huge predicted increase in population can cope?

[Zeuhl]

What action has been taken?

they've built a pile more houses and office buildings in the worst affected area the South East

[boxtops]

exactly - building on flood plains, despite the warnings. They've built no desalinisation plants.

[emmie]

nothing it would seem. All they are doing is papering over more of the south of England with housing, on unsuitable land, wait till the people who buy these properties start whinging about floods and why they can't get insurance..

[Zeuhl]

i don't know about desalination - it's energy hungry and expensive

just piping water down from Wales or the North and not allowing the stuff to leak away might be a start

[naomi24]

^^They were talking about that again on television the other day. Problem is, all they do is talk.

[emmie]

talk and more talk, all the whilst billions of gallons wash away, and bills just go up and up. When the water companies get fined, where do you suppose they get the money to pay the fines, from the same customers they consistently let down.

[jake-the-peg]

There were plans for a huge reservoir our way but local objections halted it a few years back

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10316430

The groups website still says

"NO ABINGDON RESERVOIR WAS EVER NEEDED OR JUSTIFIABLE"

but we still have a hosepipe ban

I'll let you draw your own conclusions

[birdie1971]

Zeuhl - “... just piping water down from Wales or the North and not allowing the stuff to leak away might be a start...”

The problem with the idea of piping water from wet areas of the UK to the dry ones is that the infrastructure to achieve this simply doesn't exist. There is no 'national grid' for water. There was a study done several years ago by the Environment Agency which concluded that the cost of constructing the necessary underground infrastructure would be prohibitively expensive – literally hundreds of billions of pounds. Instead, they recommended that more storage in those affected regions should be built. Needless to say, this hasn't happened.

[FredPuli43]

The government could appoint a 'drought supremo'. In 1976, the Callaghan government appointed the Sports Minister, Denis Howell, as that. As soon as he was appointed, there were downpours!

[pdq1]

Yes Birdie so building pipes to transport the water is out of the question on the grounds of cost.

Employing a drought minister does seem to cure the problem if only temporary. Rain is predicted for all of thisa week.

Why anyone should object to the building of a new reservoir beats me. Its not like a power station especially like those near Harwell or Didcot.

Birdie's suggestion of building more storage seems the only reasonable method. Also maybe we should be looking at the way we use clean drinking water to flush our loos or have baths and showers. Storage capture in every home could provide for this.

[andy-hughes]

My wife travelled to Abu Dhabi yesterday for a six week working trip. She is looking forward to the limitless supplies of hot and cold water, together with large swathes of maincured greenery everywhere.

Admittedly, the Emirates have started from scratch with a constant and on-going water issue, but their solution surely has to be ours now - desalination plants.

If the government stopped fannying about with its 'carbon footprint / windfarm' fantasies and looked at serious investment in desalination nationwide, we could solve the issue. of course it comes down to finance, so re-nationalise all the utlities and use the obscene system of paying a limited few investors to benefit the nation as a whole - which is what any utility should be doing anyway.

[birdie1971]

↑ Quite right.