The warning came as the National Drought Group prepared to meet on Thursday, with about 82% of England still in drought and severe drought declared in parts of Devon, Cornwall, Dorset, Somerset, East Sussex and West Sussex. The Met Office has said 120% of typical rainfall is needed over seven months to bring the country fully out of drought. After the driest April to September in more than a century, storage at Wimbleball reservoir, which supplies customers in east Devon, north Devon, Somerset and west Dorset, is at 16%.
In the letter dated 26 October, regulators said leakage was 18.5% above forecast and had increased since the previous year. “Given the ongoing drought conditions, these shortcomings are placing customers at a greater level of risk. This is not acceptable,” they wrote. South West Water leaks 113.5m litres of water a day from its pipes and infrastructure, the equivalent of 45 Olympic swimming pools, and 5.7m litres a day more than last year. South West Water does not acknowledge the contribution the scale of its own leakage is making to the risk of outages. The joint letter said the failure to tackle leakage had reduced confidence in the company to ensure supplies and avoid emergency abstraction from rivers that will cause environmental damage.
The severe drought in many areas of the region is affecting about 325,000 people and thousands of businesses in Exeter and mid and east Devon, who are at risk of having supplies regularly cut off over the coming weeks and months, with possible school closures and economic losses. The company has written to households in those areas urging them to reduce water use. The joint letter said: “Achieving your planned leakage reductions is reputationally important as you are asking customers to reduce their water use.”
Julian Brazil, leader of Devon county council, said householders and businesses had been told to save water to avoid worse drought restrictions and that it was all down to the dry weather. “Now we learn South West Water has been continually warned for seven years it’s not doing its bit on leakage and they are still failing, which puts our rivers and wildlife at risk of prolonged environmental damage and may leave thousands of customers and businesses facing supply restrictions,” he said. “I would say it’s a surprise but it’s not, because this crisis has been decades in the making. While we’ve been paying the highest bills in the nation since 1989, South West Water has been busy continually polluting our bathing waters, busy losing nearly one in every five litres of water on its network and most busy paying out billions in dividends to its shareholders.”
South West Water's drought programme director, Richard Stanbrook, said recent rainfall was having a positive impact on water resources after months of exceptionally dry conditions, but pressure on supplies remained significant. "We are repairing leaks, moving water around our network and taking every practical step to strengthen supplies and reduce water losses," he said. "As conditions improve, we will keep doing everything we can to protect supplies."
The company has been told to report to the government and regulators with an action plan to tackle its leaks within six weeks. The warning came as the government announced eight new regional water councils to bring local leaders, customers and businesses together to set priorities for water companies and help shape investment in water and flood infrastructure. Local leaders have been asked to submit proposals for running the new bodies by the end of the year.