{"id":813959,"date":"2026-10-26T01:04:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-26T01:04:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/813959\/"},"modified":"2026-10-26T01:04:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-26T01:04:13","slug":"storms-bring-back-rain-but-parts-of-sussex-still-in-severe-drought","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/813959\/","title":{"rendered":"Storms bring back rain but parts of Sussex still in severe drought"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The declaration of severe drought is not linked to current rainfall, but to reservoir levels.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">When making its recent assessment, the Environment Agency (EA) concluded that these levels have been significantly depleted by the <a href=\"https:\/\/environmentagency.blog.gov.uk\/2026\/10\/15\/what-is-severe-drought\/\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">South East experiencing its driest April to September in over a century., external<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Specifically, the government said the change to severe drought status had been prompted by concerns for two major reservoirs, Ardingly in West Sussex and Wimbleball in Somerset.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Ardingly serves 280,000 customers across East and West Sussex.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">On 14 October, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/crpdgzd58v2do\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">South East Water said the reservoir was 19.4% full.<\/a> A day later, severe drought was declared.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The latest reading reveals that Ardingly is 17.1% full, prompting the water company to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/cqglwgjzzpd5o\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">reduce the daily volume of water released from the reservoir into the River Ouse to protect drinking supplies<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">According to research published by the EA and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in September, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/news\/government-environment-agency-and-water-companies-step-up-efforts-to-prevent-england-remaining-in-drought-by-next-spring\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">England needs 120% of its typical rainfall over the next seven months, external<\/a> for all areas to be considered out of drought.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The declaration of severe drought is not linked to current rainfall, but to reservoir levels. When making its&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":813960,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[1397,90,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-813959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813959","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=813959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813959\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/813960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=813959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=813959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=813959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}