Imagine my surprise and delight when listening to my favourite comedy podcast (Off Menu, in case you’re wondering) in the ad break, I heard this: a teacher in a classroom says, “Class, it's been reported that if we keep using water like we are now, by 2055 we could be short by 5 billion litres a day.” In response, one pupil says, “Hold on, Miss. 2055, we'd be grown up by then. We're not having that, are we?” The whole class replies “No!” The kids then shout at us, the adults: “Oi, you lot, use watering cans!” and “fix those drips and drops” and “take shorter showers”. “Because when we work together, it all adds up. So come on, you lot, search ‘Let's save water’”. I almost punched the air with glee! Which means I almost crashed my car, because I was driving, but fortunately automatic steering kicked in.
When I got home, I did indeed search ‘Let’s save water’, and found letssavewater.com, a campaign website for England and Wales. The homepage reads (next to a picture of kids, presumably the same ones from the school, looking challengingly at us): “Water is precious. To protect it, we all need to use less. Our shifting climate and growing demand are already making water supplies less predictable for people and nature. But we can change things. People, businesses and the water industry - when we work together, it all adds up.” There’s then a long list of “what you can do”, which includes all the regular things we talk about on Water Matters.
It’s not immediately obvious to a casual user who runs this campaign. But Water Matters is no casual user. So, a little bit of digging later reveals it’s a government campaign led by Defra – the main quote in the press release from a downloadable media pack comes from Defra Water Minister Emma Hardy, saying “Droughts are becoming longer and more common due to climate change, exacerbating water shortages that can have a devastating impact on our environment. Meeting this challenge will require action from all of us”. And it’s no flash-in-the-pan campaign, either: it’s a four-year £75m publicity drive, also backed by the water regulator Ofwat and the big water companies. Plus it has a measurable target: for everyone to cut their daily use by 28 litres – or two large buckets – down from the current average for England and Wales of 140 litres a day.
It’s about time.
July 2026 officially broke the record as the driest July for England and Wales since records began in 1836. August, with still no rain, saw a nationwide wildfire Emergency Alert sent to all mobile phones.
The Metro newspaper ran with the frontpage headline, "Future looking droughtful for baking Britain", with England having had "just 7% of its expected rainfall" for summer.
By mid-August, a staggering 71.3 per cent of England was in drought, heading for a record-breaking fifth heatwave of the year. Rainfall totals ranged from 1% of the expected average for south-east England to 26% in north-west England. Some parts of Hampshire, the Isle of Wight and West Sussex hadn’t had any rain for 60 days.
The National Farmers Union has warned of inevitable food shortages to come following reduced yields. Some farmers reported harvesting in the early morning just so the dew would give the grains some moisture content. Livestock and dairy farmers reported using their reserves of winter feed because grass has stopped growing,
Almost half of England spent this summer under hosepipe bans, with a £1,000 fine attached. A government select committee report written in response to the 2025 drought says that without new supply and less waste, England’s taps could run dry. In particular, the report titled Surviving drought: reclaim the rain states:
… water efficiency measures had the highest benefit-to-cost ratio of all the adaptation actions analysed, but that there had been insufficient progress in implementing them. This was echoed by the Minister, who said that, looking at the cost per megalitre to increase capacity, the cheapest way is to reduce demand. This includes fixing leakage. The CCC added that focusing more on water efficiency can reduce the need for more supply options as well as deliver the co-benefit of producing less wastewater that will need treatment.
Yet a new YouGov survey across England and Wales highlights a gap between perception and reality when it comes to individual water use. On average, people believe they use around 30 litres a day, compared to the actual usage of around 140 litres. People use almost five times as much water as they think. Bear in mind that a single load of washing in the washing machine typically uses 50 litres, and that’s on eco-setting; older models use much more.
YouGov also found that awareness of the potential water shortfall due to the ongoing droughts and climate change is limited. More than half (53%) believe shortages are only short-term, such as during hot weather, and around a third (34%) feel their individual water use makes little difference at a national level. (I can hear those school kids again: “Hold on, 2055, we'd be grown up by then. We're not having that, are we?”) In truth, households are the biggest water consumers in the UK, at just over 50% - more than industry, or the power sector.
As part of the ‘Let’s save water’ campaign, TV presenter Jeff Brazier fronted a short film, going around the country to speak to water experts about the scale of the problem. The Met Office’s Lizzie Kendon told him, “We expect the climate to get warmer and wetter. But it’s not as simple as that. We’re going to get very short intense downpours with big gaps… that is a real challenge for us in terms of capturing rainfall.” Clare Cashon of the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust tells him, “if demand keeps increasing and we keep taking water from the environment, it will be difficult to make sure there is enough for us and wildlife… The combination of extreme weather and increasing water use means our habitats are under threat”.
Let's Save Water, Jeff Brazier outside Met Office. Credit: Venetia Dearden
The last point seems especially pertinent, to me. Individual water use did not cause this problem. It is a combination of factors. Mismanagement of infrastructure by private water companies is one, as we have seen in previous Water Matters blogs and pods; climate change is another. But yes, individual water use is one of the big factors, too – and if we don’t play our part then we will not get through the even longer, drier summers ahead, without much stricter, 1976-style water restrictions.
Reflecting on his experience making the film, Jeff Brazier said that “Making this film changed the way I think about water. Like many people, I’ve always assumed it would be there when I needed it, but after speaking to the experts, it’s clear we can’t afford to take it for granted. The challenge is bigger and more immediate than I realised. What struck me most is… the impact on rivers, wildlife, communities, and the future resilience of our country.”
We don’t discuss often enough the impact on wildlife. Wildlife rescue centres in drought-affected England and Wales have been struggling to cope this summer. Sanctuaries describe being “overwhelmed” with “unprecedented numbers since May”. Hedgehogs and owls have been particularly badly affected during a succession of heatwaves, as food and water sources have dried up or disappeared. The public can help here, too, by leaving water out in bird baths or shallow dishes, providing shaded areas and wildlife ponds.
The drought has also highlighted some questions about whether we are all in this together. In London, Dulwich College and St Paul's School came in for criticism for the lushness of their playing fields. St Paul's School told the BBC that it was watering "just the pitches we will be using in three weeks when pupils return to minimise injury risk, not the rest of the grounds or flower beds". While a golf course owner told BBC London: "Fortunately, the club has a borehole, and this is licensed by the Environment Agency… and we are able to extract up to 36,000 cubic metres of water per year between 1 March and 31 October”. Sport playing surfaces and golf courses are indeed exempt from hosepipe bans. While boreholes don’t lead to miraculously free water, they tap into the same aquifers which otherwise provide our drinking water or feed natural springs which in turn feed our streams, rivers and reservoirs. At the same time, Guy Singh-Watson, of Riverford Organic Farmers in Buckfastleigh, Devon, said his workers were choosing which plants to water and which to let die. Fresh food or a par four? Those are conversations, both politically and culturally, that need to be had over the coming months.
Emma Pinchbeck, chief executive of the Climate Change Committee, told BBC Radio 4's Today programmethat the UK is "not prepared at all" for the prolonged dry weather. "We're seeing right now with the impacts on farming from this drought and the extreme heat we're experiencing [that] our infrastructure, our agricultural sector and lots of areas of the economy are not really ready for the weather we now have and how that weather will change up to 2050."
The final word should go to the kids: “Oi, you lot, use watering cans!” and “fix those drips and drops” and “take shorter showers”. “Because when we work together, it all adds up.” It’s not the solution on its own, but it’s a start. Hopefully, it’s the start of a national conversation that doesn’t die down, this time, with the first autumn rains.
