Calls grow to allow farmers to build ‘modest’ reservoirs

Pressure is mounting on the Government to allow farmers to build “modest-sized” reservoirs to alleviate pressures caused by droughts and flooding.

While the NFU’s lead on the water crisis, its Deputy President and East Yorkshire dairy farmer Paul Tompkins has called for a risk register for vulnerable businesses and a more responsive abstraction licensing system, in a meeting with the National Drought Group this week he highlighted the union’s campaign over easing planning rules for smaller on-farm reservoirs.

The Country Land and Business Association has also issued a call to enable growers needed to capture more winter rainfall for use during increasingly hot summers, underlining how farmers can face two approval processes before developing a reservoir.

It said farmers spend an average of £45,000 obtaining permission before construction begins.

Giant dust clouds rise from a combine harvester as crosses a parched field following the driest July ever recorded by the Met Office.

The National Drought Group meeting came as Lincolnshire was put into drought status and Yorkshire joined neighbours Cumbria, Lancashire and Greater Manchester in prolonged dry weather status.

East Yorkshire recorded just 0.8mm of rainfall in July, a record low, according to the Met Office. It said the River Derwent at Buttercrambe saw its lowest July monthly mean flow on record.

It said while groundwater levels were low at nearly all its indicator sites, Wetwang in East Yorkshire was particularly low. The dry conditions were combined with average maximum temperatures in North Yorkshire of 22.5C, almost six degrees lower than in Surrey.

NFU Regional Board chair William Maughan, who farms near Darlington, said the dry conditions had led to his harvest being completed by last weekend. He said: “Last year was a very early harvest for us, the earliest ever. I would say we were earlier this year. It’s just been one crop into another. The people you speak to in the North say their yields have been mixed.”

William Maughan, NFU North Regional Board chairman.

Mr Maughan said as a cereal grower he was not as interested as those on light land or root vegetable growers in developing an on-farm reservoir. He said: “There are plenty of people growing root crops around Yorkshire who would be very interested. But who knows in the next few years we might be needing to look at things like that.”

The comments come as research from the Institute of Grocery Distribution’s saw water pressures ranked amongst the biggest threats to food security and found 91 per cent of respondents thought food system risks had increased during the previous 12 months.

Meanwhile, Alistair Carmichael, who chairs the Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, emphasised farmers should be allowed to build “modest-sized” reservoirs to ease the pressures caused by both heatwaves and flooding. Mr Carmichael said requests for reservoir permissions get “caught up in the planning system at the moment” and that “presumed consent” was “within the power of Government to deliver”.

This week saw Downing Street state it recognised the dry conditions were having a significant impact on communities, farmers and businesses. A Government spokesman said: “Our climate is changing. Droughts are becoming more common, which is why we’re focused on both the immediate response and long-term resilience. We’re also backing major investment in water infrastructure, including new reservoirs, whilst making clear that water companies must do more to cut leaks and improve resilience.”