The East of England is the UK’s driest region and fastest growing region. But as the population grows and projections from the Met Office show that summers will only get hotter and drier, there is a pressing need to think differently about how we can protect our most precious resource. Having recently delivered a TedX talk on water supply solutions at Cranfield University, Anglian Water’s Head of Supply Demand Strategy, Geoff Darch, discusses how new supplies of water are being developed to address the multiple challenges our region faces and ensure water security for generations to come.  

In the past two years we’ve experienced drought, extreme temperatures and floods. We’re living amid a worsening climate crisis and a surging population, with more than 700,000 homes coming to our region alone in the next 25 years. But as temperatures soar and demand increases,  we’re presented with significant challenges around water security. 

From flooding to drought 

Our water network needs to be resilient to both drought and flooding, and this applies to all aspects of our supply system: abstraction, treatment and production, and distribution. 

Large scale investment in water resilience across our region began in the 1990s. Drilling new boreholes to better access more underground water supplies during drought and installing new pumping infrastructure at some of our main reservoirs, gave us a more agile way of moving water around our region. This was combined with an ambitious goal of driving down leakage to world leading lows and having some of the most water savvy customers, who use less water than anywhere else in the UK! It’s all these reasons and more, why we’ve been able to confidently inform customers we’ll be able to avoid a hosepipe ban this summer - just like we did in the 2022 drought when temperatures soared, and we experienced the driest soil conditions on record.  

However, this alone won’t be enough to meet the challenges of the future. Unless we do more, we won’t have enough water to go around. This means building new reservoirs and more pipelines, fixing even more leaks and helping our customers to use even less.    

Building new reservoirs 

With wetter winters on the horizon, having the appropriate assets to store more water will ensure our region is better prepared for drier summers. Our plans to build two new reservoirs, in Lincolnshire and the Fens, will help buffer climate vulnerability in our region.  

When there is available water in rivers that would otherwise drain to the sea, the reservoirs will store the water for when it’s needed. Storing more than 50 million cubic meters of freshwater each, the reservoirs will supply enough water for more than half a million homes in Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire and Anglian Water’s wider region. 

Importantly, the reservoirs will also provide further protection to the environment by enabling a reduction in the amount of water taken from environmentally sensitive groundwater sources, improving the flow in chalk streams. In addition, the new reservoirs will become important new habitats for wildlife, as well as providing recreational opportunities for our customers.  

The reservoirs are significant investments in England’s water infrastructure and a once-in-a-generation opportunity to deliver lasting benefits across our region, while crucially keeping taps running.  

Doing things differently 

As well as optimising our existing network and assets, we must look at how we can do things differently, which includes using less climate-sensitive sources of water like desalination and water reuse or water recycling. Although desalination is a relatively new technology in the UK, it has been employed extensively across the world, with its use rapidly increasing over the past 20 years.  

Desalination involves removing salt and other impurities from sea water, and re-mineralising so that it is suitable for distribution and consumption. We are already planning desalination plants at three locations along our coastline, including Bacton in Norfolk.  
Water reuse is a similar process to desalination that involves advanced treatment of final effluent, which then means the water can be returned to the environment where it mixes with rainfall and river flows and is eventually abstracted and treated again before being put into supply. Plans are already underway in Colchester, one of our region’s driest areas, for a new water reuse plant. The water from which will be pumped to Ardleigh Reservoir through a new transfer pipeline, where it will mix with waters from the River Colne. This scheme is forecast to provide 24% of Colchester’s forecast new water needs – demonstrating how vital these new supply options will be in coming years. 

However, new solutions such as desalination and reuse must be sustainable. Both require a significant amount of energy, so we must look at alternative ways of powering these solutions to remain on track to achieving net zero on carbon emissions by 2030. Alongside this, we must ensure our water quality is uncompromised, and service is not disrupted.  

Looking ahead 

Ensuring a resilient water supply for the future forms a key component of our largest-ever, £9 billion business plan for 2025-30, which is currently under review, having received initial feedback from Ofwat. As part of this business plan, we've outlined £1.5 billion of investment into delivering the infrastructure our region needs to grow and thrive.

There are a huge number of uncertainties that we’ve got to manage moving forward, to ensure we can continue supplying water for generations to come. But water security isn’t just about water: it underpins social and economic growth and in a region such as ours, plays a significant role in the security of our food, the livelihood of our communities and the protection of our environment.