{"id":804557,"date":"2026-10-16T14:34:16","date_gmt":"2026-10-16T14:34:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/804557\/"},"modified":"2026-10-16T14:34:16","modified_gmt":"2026-10-16T14:34:16","slug":"action-needed-to-save-water-minister-tells-mps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/804557\/","title":{"rendered":"Action needed to save water, minister tells MPs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Environment Agency was also expected to increase compliance checks on businesses withdrawing water from natural sources to ensure they only take permitted quantities.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It said &#8220;small changes&#8221; including taking shorter showers, fixing leaks and turning off taps while brushing teeth could &#8220;make a real difference&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;These aren&#8217;t token gestures,&#8221; the agency said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;They cut the amount of water we need to take from rivers and groundwater, protecting supplies for people and leaving more for wildlife, wetlands and the natural systems we all depend on.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Environment Agency said further dry weather was expected for the rest of October: &#8220;The usual seasonal rainfall has yet to arrive, and 82% of England remains in drought.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In some areas, 120% of the expected rainfall was needed for the next six months or &#8220;drought conditions will continue and could worsen&#8221;, it said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Severe drought is the most serious level, and was declared &#8220;when evidence shows drought is causing, or will soon cause, serious harm, and that emergency action is needed to protect people, water supplies, the environment, farming, infrastructure or other critical services&#8221;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Environment Agency was also expected to increase compliance checks on businesses withdrawing water from natural sources to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":804558,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-804557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=804557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804557\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/804558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=804557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=804557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=804557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}