The government intends to keep up the pressure on the water companies to reduce leakage and take more steps to reduce personal water consumption, according to the newly-published Water Conservation Report 2018 from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

The report to Parliament sets out the government’s progress to promote water conservation over the period April 2015 to March 2018, including action taken to date and further plans.

The report says that reducing the amount of water we consume and waste could make a significant difference to water availability. For example, reducing leakage by 50% and per capita consumption to 100 litres per day could provide enough water for more than an additional 20 million people by 2050,without taking more from the environment.

Reducing the amount of water used could also allow development and housing growth, and sustainable business growth in areas where it would otherwise be restricted because of water supply and environmental pressures

The report states:

“In many cases efficiency can be achieved at little cost to developers. Requiring all developers to build to the lower standard of 110 litres per person per day would only cost a maximum of £9 additional per dwelling.”

Commenting on leakage, the report says that while leakage has fallen by a third since privatisation, the water companies have made “little progress” in reducing leakage since 2014.

Around 22% of water currently put into supply is lost through leakage, equating to approximately 3 billion litres of water per day. According to the report, besides the loss of water (and the cost of energy and chemicals used to treat it), leakage affects customer attitudes to reducing their own consumption and makes supplies less reliable. Customers expect the government and water companies to take “decisive action” to tackle leakage.

However, it goes on to acknowledge that the water companies have responded well to steers on leakage from both the Government and Ofwat , proposing an average leakage reduction of 16% by 2025. The water industry has also committed to reducing leakage by 50% by 2050 at the latest which would reduce overall leakage to 10% of supply.

The paper says the government will review progress on the current leakage reduction target every five years. The Environment Agency’s modelling for its national framework on water resources will also test different levels of leakage ambition and set expectations for regional groups of water companies.

The adoption of customer supply pipes by water companies is another possible action flagged up in the report to reduce supply pipe leakage. The option was investigated in 2012 but the government decided not to pursue legislation to require water companies to adopt customer supply pipes at that time.

On per capita consumption, the report says the water companies are forecasting a reduction to 123 litres per person per day on average by 2045. However, a number of water companies are going much further than this with Yorkshire Water aiming for 111 litres per person per day by 2045 and Southern Water committing to an even lower target of100 litres per person per day by 2040.

The government is planning to launch a call for evidence on setting an ambitious target for personal water consumption early in the New Year. This will be a national, nonbinding target that will be used to judge the effectiveness of government actions and those of the water industry in reducing water use.

Click here to download Water conservation report - Action taken and planned by government to encourage the conservation of water