Sign in to save articles.
The week in brief · Week 44 · 26 October – 1 November
Water regulators in England published their verdict on the first year of the country's new water resources plans this week, and it was blunt: most companies are already off track, with demand above forecast and leakage stuck where it was. In Brussels the European Commission proposed a climate resilience law that would give every Member State the same warming trajectory to plan against, and promised a separate water initiative. Equipment markets sent a more cautious signal, with Xylem cutting its full-year outlook.
The Environment Agency's annual review covers April 2025 to March 2026, the first year of the water resources management plans drawn up in 2024 (Environment Agency, 2026a). National demand rose from 13,946 Ml/d to 14,110 Ml/d, against a planned 13,774 Ml/d. Leakage was meant to fall to 2,441 Ml/d; it came in at 2,621 Ml/d, essentially unchanged from the year before and just under 19% of all water put into distribution. Household consumption edged up to 136.9 litres per person per day.
There was progress on metering. Meters now cover 65.2% of households, up from 62.7%, and almost 20% of homes and more than 16% of businesses have smart meters. Outage, the temporary loss of available treated water supply, fell from 518 Ml/d to 378 Ml/d. But the review lists a string of delayed supply schemes: an Affinity Water transfer planned for March 2025 is now expected in summer 2027, three Cambridge Water schemes are held up by planning constraints, and Southern Water's delays mean greater reliance on what the agency calls environmentally damaging drought measures in Hampshire. Most companies' data returns contained moderate or significant errors; only one, SES Water, needed no correction.
