Why is a national grid for water still a pipe dream?

HOSEPIPE bans began in parts of the country last week and, if the dry weather continues, we have been threatened ultimately with standpipes in the streets, as some areas had to endure in 1976.

- Ross Clark

But for the residents of the Buckinghamshire village of Northend, the taps have already run dry. This week they had to make do with bottled water as the small reservoir which feeds their village was unable to keep up the water pressure, just as residents say it has in previous dry periods.

How ironic that 15 miles away, outside the town of Abingdon, lies a site of a proposed reservoir which could be doing a lot to ease pressure on the water supply in times such as this. Thames Water proposed to build the reservoir in 2006, but the plans have yet to see the light of day. They were opposed by the Environment Agency on the grounds that the reservoir was not needed – the same government quango whose chief executive James Bevan told the Royal Society in a speech last October that the country was facing the “jaws of death” as water supply failed to catch up with demand.