Ministers accused of having no plan to deal with drought

The government has been accused of having no plan to deal with drought conditions that have seen record-breaking wildfires.

- SAPHORA SMITH AND HARRY COCKBURN

Millions of people in southern England are subject to hosepipe bans, farmers are concerned about their crops and natural habitats are under pressure as months of dry weather push the country towards dwindling water supplies, with another heatwave on the horizon. It is only set to get worse, with the climate emergency expected to bring drier, hotter summers to the UK and, with them, the potential for more frequent droughts.

“This crisis in our system was entirely predictable and the government should have both anticipated and planned for it,” Jim McMahon, the shadow secretary of state for environment, food and rural affairs, told The Independent. “In a country with plenty of rain outside of mid-summer, we should not need to rely on hosepipe bans to get us through the dry months.”

The Independent can reveal that more wildfires broke out in England and Wales in July than there were in the whole of last year, as the dry and warm weather created conditions for fires to tear through the countryside and into cities. There were 244 wildfires recorded in both countries in July, compared with only 11 in July last year – more than 22 times as many, and more than the 237 recorded in the whole of 2021, according to the National Fire Chiefs Council’s wildfire lead Paul Hedle.