Do you recall the TV news reports last year as England was awash with storms Babet, Ciarán, Debi, Elin, Fergus, Gerrit, Henk, Isha and Jocelyn, followed this winter by Storms Darragh and Éowyn. They devastated the Country. The West Country was cut-off by floods, rivers were bursting their banks in many of our historic cities, roads were impassable across the Country.  

Under the last Conservative Government, 9 new reservoirs were being planned which could have stored much of this deluge for use in the summer dry season.

With summer here, water supplies are dwindling. Soon we will have a hosepipe ban and other draconian measures to save water.

According to the Royal Meteorological Society, winters are getting wetter: October 2023 to March 2024 was the wettest winter half-year in the last 250 years.

Cllr Dr Martin Parsons (Conservative, Mersea and Pyfleet Ward) proposed a motion to Colchester City Council at its meeting on 16th July 2025, setting out the Conservative analysis of the water supply deficit, giving their recommendation, and calling for a meeting with the Secretary of State for the Environment:

Colchester City Council notes:

1. The findings of the Local Plan Water Cycle Study that the Essex South Water Resource Zone, which covers Colchester west of the Colne and the surrounding rural areas, “is predicted to go into supply deficit by 2025 if no water resource interventions are implemented”. That means an inability to supply the needs of the existing population to acceptable standards; and that “this is predominantly due to growth in demand coupled with a fall in water supply available.

2. The need for urgent upgrades to sewage treatment capacity and the building of the new water re-use plant in Colchester if more houses are to be built.

3. That failure to address these issues before new houses are built will create serious risks to public health.

4. The Council additionally notes the recent comments of the Environment Secretary, Steve Reed, that the UK as a whole faces running out of clean water and the introduction of water rationing within 10 years unless there is major investment in infrastructure.

5. In this context, the Council notes that Essex is the most water-stressed part of the UK.

The Council therefore resolves:

That the Council should seek an urgent meeting with the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government asking the Government to ensure that the necessary water and sewage infrastructure is provided so that Colchester can safely deliver the Government house-building target.

2025-07-17

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