Member

Secondly, the Government have pointed to their plans to limit overabstraction by water companies through amending licences, but their target achievement date is 2030. This could take far, far too long and be far, far too late for many threatened chalk streams. The current abstraction situation is grave. Water companies are not sourcing their water from chalk streams within sustainable limits. The Catchment Based Approach’s chalk streams annual review 2024-2—a mouthful of a title—published last week, reports that a third of chalk streams do not have healthy flow regimes. This CaBA report also highlights additional water bodies where, despite flows being classed as compliant overall, abstraction can cause significant local impacts in parts of the watercourse. For example, in the River Loddon, upstream areas are impacted by abstraction but, because of wastewater discharge downstream of them, flows at the assessment point are classed as compliant. If overabstraction occurs for a sustained period upstream, the whole chalk stream could well dry out.