Vision of Scotland as England's fountain still a little futuristic

LONDON LETTER:Water shortages are not just affecting the traditionally drier regions in the southeast

BEAUTIFUL AND remote, Loch Katrine, eight miles long and a mile wide, lies north of Glasgow. It was little known to all bar locals and those who knew of it as the birthplace of the Jacobite Rob Roy MacGregor, until Sir Walter Scott wrote The Lady of the Lakein 1810.

By the 1850s, Glasgow, fuelled by the Industrial Revolution, was growing rapidly, but plagued by frequent cholera outbreaks that killed thousands. Loch Katrine’s pure waters were deemed to be the cure. In 1855, work began on an aqueduct, and it was opened by Queen Victoria in 1859. From there, the water ran in eight-foot-wide pipes 26 miles to a reservoir outside the city.

“My expectations have been realised to the very letter,” said its engineer, John Frederick Bateman, when his work, which operated with just a tiny fall in gradient and no pumping stations, was applauded by his fellows. Water from the loch still makes the same journey today, though capacity has been increased and water treatment, unknown in Bateman’s day, purifies the supply.

Now some in Scotland, such as Mike Cantlay, the chairman of the VisitScotland tourism agency, believes that Bateman’s vision offers a model for Scotland’s future economic development, where it prepares to become the fountain that could in the decades to come supply much of England’s water needs – for a price, of course.

A national water grid could carry Scottish water deep into England, he argues.

“If the city fathers back in the 1800s came up with this magnificent scheme to transport that volume of water to Glasgow, what will Scotland’s use of its water be in 30 years’ time, in terms of recreation, renewable energy potential and whether Scotland might eventually sell water?” he said recently.

Oil and gas companies have such networks, and though their products are more valuable, there is reason to believe that water will become equally so in time, he believes: “I think that Scotland’s water has enormous potential, and the point is approaching where we will have to have a really good look at Scotland’s inland waters and its total potential.”

For now, the UK Environment Agency rules out Cantlay’s dream as too expensive. Transporting water from Wales to London would be the cheapest option, but even that would cost £2.4 million per million litres a day, though local authorities around London are building new reservoirs to capture more of the rain that falls on the southeast of England.

This year, the southeast and many other parts are not getting enough rainfall, however. Last November many parts of Cumbria, including William Wordsworth’s home village of Cockermouth, were flooded, with bridges washed away. Today they are facing the threat of hose-pipe bans and drought orders because local reservoirs are only two-thirds full and falling fast, following the driest spring and early summer since 1929.

But it is not just Cumbria. The entire northwest is heading for a drought. In May, it got less than 40 per cent of normal rainfall and the same in June. The local water company, United Utilities, is praying for rain. Normally, England’s northwest has the highest rainfall in the country, but it has few natural underground water sources, leaving it almost entirely dependent on reservoirs.

The problem of water shortages is not going to disappear with days of heavy rain. The UK water regulator Ofwat fears that climate change and population growth could see average river flows drop by between 50 per cent and 80 per cent by 2050 in some parts, while groundwater supplies could fall back by nearly 10 per cent by 2025. Hundreds of important wildlife areas face destruction.

The British Meteorological Office has warned that the extreme drought created by the 1976 summer – which caused whole rivers to dry up – could occur 10 times more frequently by 2100 under the most severe climate change scenarios, causing hundreds of millions of losses for farmers, threatening hardship in the cities and sharp price rises from the privatised water companies.

People in the UK use nearly 150 litres of water each per day, though total water usage rises to 3,400 litres per day when one takes account of the water used to grow food, produce goods, run transport systems, etc. The British government wants to cut individual water use in England to 130 litres per person per day within 20 years, and force companies to restrict the losses that are suffered from faulty pipes.

Home-owners pay for water in the UK, though most just pay a flat fee unrelated to usage. The last Labour government was working to a plan that would see universal water-metering throughout the UK by 2030, which would allow for more targeted pricing and encourage people to use less water, particularly at times when supplies are down.

The Cantlay vision of Scotland as the UK’s water-fountain does, however, struggle with one problem. Scotland this year is suffering its own shortages, following the driest January to June since 1941.

Records show that there have been only four drier times since 1910. In Dumfries and Galloway, the local council has taken to sending out “Save A Flush” bags to 22,000 homes.