Reservoir water levels higher than in 2022 drought

A utility company has said the water levels in the South West's reservoirs are "still in quite a healthy position" despite consecutive heatwaves.

Ralph Ledbetter, water services strategic lead at South West Water, said natural levels across Devon and Cornwall were "in a much better position" than they had been in the drought four years ago.

He said the water levels in the reservoirs were about 15% to 20% per cent higher than they had been in August 2022.

"Whilst we're around 56% full at the moment, we know that there's going to be a continued dry period during August and September so we're looking ahead and making sure that we're being proactive," he added.

Significant rainfall in January and three named storms topped up key reservoirs in Devon and Cornwall.

At the time South West Water said the deluge had left the firm "confident" about supplies heading into summer and it had reported total water levels across its network were 91.4% full.

Devon and Cornwall's three strategic reservoirs - Roadford, Wimbleball and Colliford - had respectively reached 94.9%, 94% and 78% water capacity.

Paul Merchant, South West Water's senior water resources manager, said the rate of recovery had been "unusually high" compared to a normal year.

However, Ledbetter said, while it had been "one of the wettest winters on record", rainfall since the start of March had been "below average".

He said South West Water's drought plan had set out steps to manage sources of water, one of which was the hosepipe ban.

"This summer and this year, we don't expect to have to take any more further kind of steps in terms of escalation.

"What we'll be really focused on is ensuring that when we see the winter come, that we're in a really good position to make sure we're maximising the benefit of the rainfall that we see," he added.

Ledbetter said although nearly all of Cornwall received its water from Colliford Lake, South West Water had bought a former china clay quarry near St Austell.

He said: "We've recently brought in Blackpool Quarry, which is an old quarry pit, which we are using as a kind of bucket to store water to really provide extra resilience, too.

"We do have two or three of those already that help supply water and we know that they are a really good way of storing water because the clay pits themselves are excellent because they basically don't leak."

Ledbetter said there had been "challenges" with securing environmental permissions for a proposed desalination plant in Par.

"It could be that desalination comes back into the equation, but at the moment we're reviewing across all the different types of options we could be looking at," he added.

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