The East cannot wait for rain
- Eastern Powerhouse
- 10 minutes ago
- 6 min read
An escalating water security crisis demands an urgent solution - and political leadership capable of delivering it.
This summer is on course to be the UK's hottest since records began, with 2026 likely to be the first year in which the country has recorded four separate days with temperatures of 36C or above. More than two thirds of England is now in drought while reservoir and river levels are extremely low. Water abstraction is being curtailed, and farms are drawing down stored water at the point in the season when high-value crops need it most. This follows last summer, which is currently the hottest on record.
What happens if we have a dry winter and another hot summer?
This is a scenario, not a prediction. There is no credible forecast that can tell us what is coming. The Met Office outlook currently extends only into the autumn. Predictions vary, from flash drought to winter floods. But climate change does not simply mean that every summer will be dry and every winter wet. Natural variability remains powerful. However, projections point towards drier summers and wetter winters with heavier rainfall events and greater evaporation. Yet the East's problem is not a lack of rain in the abstract. It is a failure to capture, move and store water when it arrives, then deploy it when and where it is needed.
Nevertheless, the East must plan for all scenarios.
The fifth heatwave adds further damage to agriculture
The fifth heatwave is deepening losses already embedded in the 2026 harvest. Early estimates suggest wheat, spring barley and oat yields are below their ten-year averages. The Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit estimates that the gap between pre-heatwave forecasts and current yields is worth between £305 million and £390 million across the principal arable crops alone. Its projection of a 19.5 million-tonne harvest would be the lowest in the Defra series dating back to 1984 if confirmed.
That is only part of the agricultural cost. Fresh produce growers face abstraction stoppages just as irrigation demand peaks. Stored water is being exhausted early. Heat stress has reduced milk production by an estimated 18.5 million litres in recent weeks; grass growth and forage quality have deteriorated; livestock farmers are using winter feed in summer; sugar beet is under greater pest, disease and yield pressure; and dry soils threaten the establishment of next year's crops. Crop fires, higher energy demand, equipment stress and labour productivity losses compound the impact.
Across the economy, Verdant estimates that the first four heatwaves had already cost £4.4 billion in lost output by the end of July. That modelled estimate captures the scale of the exposure: lower productivity, overheated equipment and infrastructure, higher cooling demand, wildfire response, disrupted transport and rising food prices. The effects persist long after the temperature falls, through reduced farm incomes, higher feed and input bills, damaged ecosystems and weaker investment capacity. All of this contributes to the rising cost of living.
A warmer climate will create some agricultural opportunities
Research led by the University of East Anglia suggests that parts of the UK could become more suitable for crops such as durum wheat, sunflowers, soybeans, chickpeas, cowpeas, wine grapes and, over time, some citrus and other warmer-climate produce. Longer growing seasons may also support new rotations and higher-value horticulture.
But under higher warming scenarios, East Anglia becomes less suitable for some crops it currently grows well, including wheat, onions, oats and strawberries. New crops require trials, processing capacity, agronomy, markets and insurance. Above all, they require reliable water at critical points in the growing cycle. Climate change offers diversification, not a free dividend.
This is where agricultural reservoirs can alter the economics of farming. Capturing high winter flows for summer use can protect yields, support high-value vegetables and horticulture, reduce dependence on environmentally damaging summer abstraction and give businesses confidence to invest in new crops. With shared telemetry, flexible licences and farmer-led Water Abstraction Groups, a network of reservoirs could also enable water to be moved or traded between users, turning resilience into an investable regional asset.
Reservoir ownership will not guarantee prosperity. Capital costs are high, suitable land and connections matter, evaporation must be managed and permissions remain cumbersome. Smaller farms may need collective schemes, long-term finance and public match funding. Yet in a water-constrained economy, secure storage can be the difference between managing climate risk and simply absorbing it.
The Fens is more than Cambridge's water tank
The case for action is often framed around unlocking the growth of Cambridge. That is important for growth in the region, but it is too narrow. The Fens contains 48 per cent of England's Grade 1 agricultural land, produces a third of England's vegetables and supports 80,000 food-supply-chain jobs. More than 600,000 people depend on a landscape whose roads, railways, energy systems, settlements and farms exist only because water is actively managed.
A modern water system could support a wider Fens economy: food production and processing; agri-tech, sensors and real-time telemetry; water engineering and pump manufacture; renewable power for energy-intensive drainage; nature recovery and peat management; recreation and tourism around major storage; and resilient housing and employment growth in Ely, March, Wisbech, Peterborough and the market towns. Over the longer term, ambitious coastal and tidal-storage options around the Wash should be assessed seriously, alongside their environmental and engineering constraints. The objective should be a productive, climate-resilient region, not merely a defensive system protecting Cambridge's supply.
Plenty of plans; not enough pace
There is activity. The Environment Agency and Defra have escalated drought response through the National Drought Group, increased monitoring and pressed water companies on leakage. Ministers say they will make on-farm irrigation reservoirs easier to build, while nine major reservoirs and transfer schemes are planned nationally. Anglian Water and Cambridge Water are progressing the Fens Reservoir, but it is not expected to supply water until the mid-to-late 2030s.
Water Resources East has a regional plan, it coordinates the Cambridge Water Scarcity Group and, with Cambridgeshire County Council, has launched a £1.3 million Agricultural Water Resilience Grant offering up to £50,000 for water-saving and storage projects. The Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority's corporate plan commits to promote networks of small farm reservoirs. Fens 2100+ has published a powerful Case for Change and a two-year action plan for a decade of investment. The Cambridge Growth Company has commissioned further technical work, including a water-balance study, following the initial Stantec analysis.
These are welcome steps. They are also fragmented, process-heavy and too slow for the speed at which the risk is escalating. The Fens 2100+ evidence says that 31 per cent of water-management assets could be beyond their foreseeable design life by 2040, with £6 billion to £9.4 billion needed simply to improve asset health and performance. A major reservoir arriving in the late 2030s cannot answer the immediate agricultural gap. A grant scheme, however useful, cannot substitute for a regional delivery model. And a stakeholder group that rarely meets cannot provide political command.
A test of political leadership
National government should treat water security in the East as critical economic infrastructure, with the same urgency applied to energy, transport and housing. It should streamline planning and abstraction rules for nature-positive winter storage; provide long-term capital and guarantees for shared agricultural reservoirs; enable real-time, data-led licensing; and align Defra, the Environment Agency, Ofwat, water companies, local planning and growth policy behind a single set of outcomes.
Regional leadership matters just as much. The Mayor and Combined Authority should convene a regional water summit, publish a delivery programme with named owners and deadlines, and establish a small executive taskforce able to commission pilots and unblock decisions. The proposed South Level telemetry and farmer-led abstraction initiative offers exactly the kind of practical demonstrator that should be tested now. East Cambridgeshire, the Internal Drainage Boards, farmers, Water Resources East and the Cambridge Growth Company should be at the same table, working from shared data.
The East does not need another diagnosis. It needs a portfolio: immediate drought measures; agricultural reservoirs and flexible abstraction within this Parliament; strategic transfers and the Fens Reservoir in the next decade; and a long-term settlement for flood defence, freshwater storage, the Wash and the future of the whole Fens economy.
Yes, this is an escalating crisis. But it is also a solvable one. The Fens was created by collective engineering, investment and political will. Its next chapter will require the same qualities. The question is not whether the climate will force change. It is whether our institutions can move before the next dry winter and hot summer make the cost of delay impossible to ignore.
Sources and further reading
With thanks to Matthew Bullock for his contribution to this briefing.
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