Brits could be forced to share baths and drink bottled water without urgent action to fix the country’s water supply, a top minister has said.
Environment Secretary Steve Reed warned there could be rationing by the 2030s as he set out steps to make it harder to block building new reservoirs. At present, people are allowed three attempts to ask the courts to challenge the construction of reservoirs.
But Mr Reed wants to change the law to just one attempt for cases without merit and a maximum of two for other challenges. Without action, he said the Government would have to look at rationing water.
Mr Reed told the Mail on Sunday: “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.”
The Environment Secretary added: “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 wants nine new reservoirs built by 2050 - with the first complete by 2029.
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He also vowed to clean up Britain's waterways after a surge in the amount of raw sewage dumped into England's rivers and seas. There were 3.6 million hours of spills, compared to 1.75 million hours in 2022, according to the Environment Agency.
Mr Reed recalled fond memories of going on beach trips to the West Country as a child. He said: "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.
"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."
