More than one million people in Britain could lose access to piped drinking water in a major infrastructure failure, according to a revised government assessment that has sharply increased the estimated severity of the threat.
Officials have upgraded the potential impact of a significant failure in water infrastructure from “minor” to “catastrophic” within the space of a year, reflecting concerns over ageing assets, climate pressures and the potential for hostile states to target critical infrastructure.
The government’s National Risk Register, published in July, estimates that there is a 5 to 25 per cent probability of a major water infrastructure failure affecting a large urban area.
Such an incident could disrupt drinking water and wastewater services for more than one million people, potentially forcing evacuations and leading to the closure of schools and hospitals. The disruption could take months to resolve.
The severity of the scenario has been ranked alongside other major national emergencies, including a pandemic.
The reassessment comes as pressure grows on Britain’s water infrastructure from several directions. Prolonged drought has exposed weaknesses in the country’s ability to maintain supplies during periods of unusually low rainfall, while concerns have also increased over the vulnerability of critical infrastructure to hostile state activity.
Paul Netherton, the former police national lead for resilience, said climate change and the growing threat of state aggression were contributing to the heightened risk.
He told The Times: “Climate change has meant the water system is increasingly vulnerable. We have seen how vulnerable this summer with the droughts.
“There are not enough pumping stations and treatment plants to cope with the strain on the system and those that we have are often in need of an upgrade.”
Mr Netherton, now a risk and resilience consultant, said an adversarial state could seek to exploit widespread public dissatisfaction with Britain’s water companies.
He said: “What is the one utility that the UK is really fed up with at the moment? The answer is water. If a hostile state can disrupt a water company with a cyberattack or contaminating the supply, the public will blame the companies.
“Their objective is to destabilise the UK, damage the society and economy, and make the population lose faith in our institutions.”
The concerns come as parts of England experience severe drought following the driest July on record.
Hosepipe restrictions now affect an estimated 29 million people, while reservoirs are on average 59.8 per cent full, almost a fifth below the normal seasonal level.
Some areas of south-east England received 85 per cent less rainfall than usual during August, intensifying concerns about the resilience of water supplies.
The National Drought Group warned on August 27 that “drought conditions will continue to worsen” without a prolonged period of significant rainfall. River levels were falling at around half of Environment Agency monitoring sites the following day.
Recent failures have also underlined the fragility of parts of the existing network.
South East Water left around 20,000 properties in Tunbridge Wells without a reliable water supply for a fortnight, while South West Water received a record £1.85mn fine following an outbreak of cryptosporidium contamination in Brixham, Devon.
Alan Smith, a former employee of several water companies who now runs the consultancy Water-People, said the consequences of longstanding underinvestment were becoming increasingly apparent.
He said: “When I was in the industry it was sacrosanct not to take any risk at all on drinking water. That is now being taken and you’re seeing it played out at South East Water and a number of other companies.”
The government has sought to emphasise that the National Risk Register is intended as a planning tool rather than a forecast.
A government spokesman said: “The National Risk Register is a planning tool and not a prediction of future events.
“Between the two editions, we have made improvements to the risk assessment, following closer working with water companies.
“The reasonable worst-case scenario used for planning is now based on a larger water plant serving a far larger population than previous editions.
“This allows the Government to plan for a more significant risk and prepare our response accordingly.
“A record £104billion is being invested across the country to rebuild our water network after years of underinvestment. We are confident about the security of supplies across the UK.”
The government’s explanation highlights an important distinction in the revised assessment. The higher potential impact does not necessarily mean officials believe a catastrophic failure has become more likely. Instead, the revised scenario is based on the potential failure of a larger facility serving a substantially bigger population.
Nevertheless, the combination of drought, ageing infrastructure and growing concerns about cyber and physical attacks on critical national assets has placed water security higher on the national resilience agenda.
For a country where public confidence in water companies has already been weakened by pollution incidents, supply failures and rising bills, a prolonged disruption affecting a major city could carry consequences extending well beyond the immediate challenge of restoring water supplies.
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