Revealed: foreign firms taking billions of litres of water from British aquifers

Foreign multinational companies are extracting billions of litres of water from British aquifers to sell as bottled water, the Guardian can reveal.

- Grace Livingstone

The Coca-Cola Company extracts the largest amount of fresh water of any drinks company in England, the data obtained through freedom of information legislation shows. It has a licence to extract 1.59bn litres of water a year from boreholes in Sidcup, Kent, for its soft drinks. It also has the right to take 377m litres for its bottled water brands Glacéau Smartwater and Abbey Well from Morpeth in Northumberland.

The French company Sources Alma is one of the biggest players in the UK water market, supplying bottled water to Tesco and Asda as well as producing its own Aqua Pura brand. Through its British subsidiary Roxane it has the right to extract 1.5bn litres annually from Armathwaite in Cumbria, where it bottles Tesco's Ashbeck water. It also bottles large quantities of water in Staffordshire, where it produces Tesco's Elmhurst brand, but this spring water is supplied by a third company - South Staffordshire Water plc - so the quantities are not publicly available.