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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Environment

Lack of water storage is an urgent national security issue

The bed of Bottoms Reservoir begins to crack during low water levels as the heatwave continues in August 2026 in Macclesfield
The bed of Bottoms Reservoir in Macclesfield begins to crack during low water levels in August. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

Your reporters came up with a good list of urgent climate policies in response to Andy Burnham’s somewhat surreal statement focusing on the sale of disposable barbecues following a Cobra meeting (From grey water to cool spaces: 10 climate crisis policies Britain needs right now, 12 August), but they missed out the No 1 issue: the UK’s water-storage capacity.

It is blindingly obvious that we need to dramatically and rapidly increase water storage. The current plans to fast-track the building of nine reservoirs by 2050 might be speedy by the standards of UK infrastructure delivery projects, but they may well have been overtaken by climate change trends.

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