Friends of the Lake District has voiced its serious concern to United Utilities over their application for a drought permit to abstract more water from Windermere in order to safeguard water supplies in the north west.  

Following months of dry weather, water levels in lakes throughout Cumbria are at record lows. As well as providing domestic water supplies for populations throughout the north west, the lakes are also home to many fish and wildlife, and of course the major draw for tourism in the Lake District.

Image left: Thirlmere in April. At its lowest level on 4 July the reservoir was 37.4% full. Last week (25 July) it was 54.6% full.

Whilst accepting the need for the permit, Friends of the Lake District feel more could have been done by United Utilities earlier to prevent this application and its likely negative impacts on the landscape.

Policy Officer Jan Darrall said: ‘United Utilities' policy is that they will only seek a drought permit once in 20 years, but this is the sixth time they have sought drought powers in the last 35 years. Rainfall has been well below average since last December. United Utilities should have introduced a hosepipe ban much earlier, and been running media coverage and campaigns to encourage the public to reduce water consumption for months.

‘Hose pipe bans and saving water are a regular fact of life in the south east, but people in the north west need to also make the connection between their use of water and the resulting effects of drought on the landscape of the Lake District and its wildlife, in addition to the knock on impacts for tourism and businesses which operate on or near the lakes.

‘Even though we've had rain this week the situation is still very serious, and we urge everyone to reduce their water consumption as much as possible.'

Friends of the Lake District are urging United Utilities to revise their plans for future drought situations to include public awareness raising and issue hose pipe bans much earlier to avoid the need for further drought power applications.

United Utilities have made an application for a drought permit for 6 months to the Environment Agency. This would allow them to abstract more water from Windermere under certain conditions. It would not lower the lake level but would reduce the amount of water going down the river Leven. Water from here would reduce the water taken from Haweswater and Thirlmere and allow them to refill if there is rain. United Utilities believe that without the drought permit there is a danger Haweswater aDrought permit withdrawn, but wasteful water use still threatens Lake District landscape, wildlife and tourism Thirlmere will not fill during the winter so that by next spring we could be facing serious water shortages.

Update - 27 July 2010:
Drought permit withdrawn, but wasteful water use still threatens Lake District landscape, wildlife and tourism

During July, United Utilities applied for drought permits to extract water from Ennerdale and Windermere. The rainfall for the year to date had been the lowest recorded for over 70 years, and stocks of water were getting dangerously low.

However, the rain came almost as soon as the applications were submitted, and consequently both applications have since been withdrawn! A hosepipe ban remains in place as reservoir levels are still low.

United Utilities will now be working with all those people and organisations who submitted comments or objections to see if processes and systems can be improved for the future.

We would like to see a review of United Utilities' current Drought Plan, to avoid the need for drought measures and their negative impacts on the landscape in future, including introducing hosepipe bans earlier, and running media campaigns to encourage the public to reduce water consumption.