Severe drought has been declared across parts of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset, East Sussex and West Sussex after the driest April-to-September period in more than a century depleted reservoirs across southern England. The Environment Agency said on 15 October that 82% of England remained in drought and that some areas would need around 120% of typical rainfall over the next six months to recover.
For construction, the immediate issue is not a blanket ban on site water. Severe drought does not automatically impose new restrictions and public supplies are expected to continue, but the operating margin around those supplies is becoming tighter. The latest government drought assessment puts reservoir storage across England at 54%, 21% below the long-term average for the time of year, while restrictions remain on hundreds of abstraction licences and water companies continue to pursue drought permits and orders.
Dry and browned grass outside Westminster Abbey during prolonged dry weather in London in August 2026. Photo: London Construction Magazine.
Key Takeaway: Severe drought has not stopped construction sites using water, but it is reducing the margin for waste. Contractors still need water for health, safety, welfare and construction processes while developers increasingly face a separate problem: whether local water infrastructure has enough capacity to support future growth.
| Indicator | Current Position | Construction Relevance |
|---|---|---|
| Severe drought | Parts of six southern English counties | Greater pressure on water companies, abstraction and business demand. |
| England reservoir storage | 54%, 21% below seasonal average | Less supply headroom entering the winter recharge period. |
| Abstraction controls | 449 licence restrictions and 1,383 voluntary 50% restrictions | Projects relying on natural water sources need to monitor licence conditions closely. |
| Housing capacity | Water UK analysis says capacity exists for 420,000 of a 1.5m-home target | Utility headroom can become a development and planning constraint. |
| PR24 expenditure | £104bn across England and Wales during 2025–30 | A large construction pipeline across networks, treatment and new resources. |
| Major water projects | 30 projects with more than £50bn estimated whole-life expenditure | Reservoirs, transfers, recycling and other strategic schemes are moving through development and procurement. |
What Severe Drought Changes for Construction
Temporary use bans are already operating across much of England, including the whole Thames Water supply area, but they should not be confused with a general prohibition on construction water use. Thames Water states that exemptions remain for health and safety and some business activities, while South West Water says businesses can continue using hosepipes where necessary for their day-to-day operations.
The next level of restriction is more relevant to commercial users. South East Water submitted an application for a non-essential use ban drought order on 2 October, followed by South West Water on 6 October. Those are applications rather than current bans. South West Water's own non-essential use ban information confirms that implementation would require approval by the Environment Secretary and would target specified non-essential business uses while supplies remain under pressure.
The more immediate regulatory exposure for some projects lies outside the public mains network. The Environment Agency reported 449 abstraction-licence restrictions in force in the week to 15 October, alongside 1,383 voluntary arrangements reducing abstraction by 50% across the Thames, Wye and Severn catchments. That matters where construction or infrastructure works depend on licensed abstraction rather than a conventional mains connection.
Site Water Use Cannot Simply Be Switched Off
Construction uses water for activities that cannot all be treated as discretionary. Health and Safety Executive guidance for work involving respirable crystalline silica identifies water suppression as an engineering control for operations including cutting, drilling, crushing and demolition. Under the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations, sites must also maintain suitable welfare arrangements, and HSE guidance requires drinking water to remain readily available to workers.
The practical response is therefore efficiency rather than simply removing legitimate water use. The Construction Leadership Council's Water Management Planning Guidance for Construction Projects identifies alternatives including captured site water for dust suppression, recirculating drive-on wheel washes, metering high-demand activities, watertight circulation tanks for piling operations and more efficient welfare equipment.
The guidance is older than the present drought, but its operational logic has become more relevant. Contractors entering a water-stressed period need to know which activities require potable water, which can safely use non-potable sources, where water is being lost and whether temporary supplies or storage need to be secured before a restriction becomes a programme problem. LCM's earlier analysis of London's drought and construction water demand made the same distinction: conservation cannot come at the expense of dust control, workforce welfare or construction quality.
Housing Delivery Is Running Into Water Capacity
The larger construction issue sits beyond individual sites. Water UK warned in July that England's existing and planned water capacity would support only 420,000 of the Government's 1.5 million-home target during the current Parliament. The figure comes from analysis by Public First commissioned by Water UK, so it is an industry-backed assessment rather than a government forecast, but the underlying constraint is increasingly visible in the planning system.
Water UK's July assessment says some parts of England have only a 2% buffer between available supply and existing demand. Government has separately acknowledged that thousands of homes in Cambridge and North Sussex have been affected by water-scarcity constraints while promoting new reservoir development.
That turns water from a utility connection issue into a development-capacity issue. A consented housing scheme still needs sufficient network and resource capacity before thousands of additional residents can be served. LCM has previously examined the same dependency in its analysis of London's infrastructure sequencing problem and in its investigation of why approved housing schemes can fail to convert into construction.
£104bn Water Programme Expands the Construction Pipeline
The drought is arriving as the water sector enters its largest investment cycle for decades. Ofwat's PR24 settlement allocates £104 billion of expenditure across England and Wales for 2025–30, including £44 billion of enhancement expenditure for new infrastructure, additional capacity and step changes in service.
Beyond that five-year programme, Ofwat's Major Water Infrastructure Programme contains 30 large-scale schemes with estimated whole-life expenditure of more than £50 billion at 2022–23 prices. The regulator says England faces a forecast public-water-supply deficit of five billion litres a day by 2055 if additional resources are not developed.
For the construction market, this creates work across reservoirs, tunnels, pipelines, pumping stations, treatment assets, transfers, recycling schemes and network reinforcement. It also increases the importance of converting regulatory allowances into deliverable projects. LCM's investigation into the £20.5 billion Thames Water infrastructure pipeline showed why funding, procurement and utility stability matter directly to contractors when development growth depends on infrastructure being delivered in sequence.
Reservoir Delivery Is Becoming a Main Construction Market
Some of that long-term programme is already physical construction. Portsmouth Water's Havant Thicket Reservoir in Hampshire is being built by Future Water MJJV, the Mackley and Jones Bros joint venture, with Ward & Burke Construction delivering the associated pipelines. Once complete, the reservoir will hold up to 8.7 billion litres and is intended to reduce pressure on environmentally sensitive water sources used by Southern Water.
Pipeline works moved into delivery during 2026. Portsmouth Water says the two new pipelines total around 7km, use pipes approximately 1.7m in diameter and will largely be installed by microtunnelling. The pipelines are scheduled for completion in 2029, while the company's current water-resource plan targets construction and filling of the reservoir by 2031.
A much larger generation of schemes sits behind it. Government plans identify the proposed Fens Reservoir as providing up to 87 million litres a day and the Lincolnshire Reservoir up to 166 million litres a day, with Anglian Water currently targeting water-in-supply dates in the second half of the 2030s. In Oxfordshire, LCM has already reported on the three international teams shortlisted for the £5.7 billion White Horse Reservoir main works competition, one of the clearest examples of drought resilience turning into a major civil-engineering procurement programme.
The immediate drought position will still depend on winter rainfall. The Environment Agency says many water companies need substantial sustained rainfall before resources return to normal, while reservoir and groundwater storage continue to decline in several areas. On the construction side, Portsmouth Water's live Havant programme provides the nearest tangible measure of what long-term resilience requires: major civils and pipeline works are under way now, with the 7km pipeline package scheduled to complete in 2029 and reservoir filling targeted by 2031.
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