Southern Water’s planning and strategy team is closely monitoring weather patterns and water usage to ensure the company develops sufficient resources to meet the demand for water in the South East.

In 2006, the company fast-tracked more than 50 schemes to improve the security of the water supply to more than one million properties.

This has included bringing old, underground boreholes back into use and upgrading our water treatment works to make them more efficient.

To adapt to the climate change, we need to capture more of the winter rainfall for use in the summer and use the available supplies more wisely.

More than 70 per cent of the water supplied in the South East comes from underground aquifers, which rely heavily on winter rainfall to refill. Shorter winters mean we have to consider building more surface reservoirs to increase storage for the summer.

Encouraging customers to be more careful with their water supplies is also important.
Find out about water saving tips in homes and gardens.

Reducing leakage is also a priority. Southern Water has the lowest level of leakage of any of the ten water and sewerage companies in England and Wales and has recently doubled the strength of our leak detection team.

Find out more information on leakage.