The 10 UK areas where housing projects are most threatened by water scarcity

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1. The risk of water shortages is threatening the development of more than 60,000 new homes in England under the Government’s five-year building plan, experts have warned.

   Local authorities in the east and south-east of England face the biggest threats to their building plans because many have seen their housing targets increased by the Government amid existing pressure on water resources from a growing population, rising temperatures and falling rainfall.

   Worthing, in West Sussex, is the worst hit town – with 2,190 of the homes needed ranked as “undeliverable” in the current government term, according to the Enabling Water Smart Communities (EWSC) partnership – 51 per cent of the total number of houses proposed for Worthing over five years.

   The [Ofwat-](https://www.ofwat.gov.uk/)funded programme, led by Anglian Water, involves the main water companies, engineers, house builders, local government and universities.

   The other most affected local authorities include Woking, with 1,795 undeliverable homes over five years, Cambridge, with 1,905 “lost” homes and Ipswich, which has 1,445 earmarked homes at risk, the EWSC report found.

   The report EWSC researchers are not saying these houses will never be built – although some, or even many, may not be.

   But rather that, based on current rules, “their construction will be delayed beyond the five year period, as the issues to do with water supply are resolved” – putting a significant brake on the proposed construction spree.

   That’s because the water companies have a statutory requirement to supply water to all new homes and if they can’t supply enough they must inform the local authority who will block the development.

   A 4,500 home project at the village of Waterbeach, near Cambridge, was held up for three years after the Environment Agency raised concerns in 2021 about water supplies before being given final approval in December after the concerns were resolved.

   Shortly after taking office last July, the Government increased England’s house building target to 1.5 million homes in five years, giving councils new, often higher, mandatory targets.

   Cambridge in particular is seen as a key area for growth after Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced plans in January to create “Europe’s Silicon Valley” in the corridor between Cambridge and Oxford.

   Researchers analysed Labour’s housing targets and data on local water availability in east and south east England, finding that in those regions, 12,300 homes a year will be “undeliverable” – amounting to 61,500 over five years.

   The researchers focused on the east and south east of England because those are known to be the worst-hit areas, but say the threat of water scarcity to new housing proposals is much broader than that.

   Lead report author Bertie Wnek, of Public First and a former policy adviser to the Treasury on the water sector, told *The i Paper*: “Housing targets across large parts of the country are threatened by water scarcity. This is particularly so in some areas where homes are most needed, like Cambridge.”

   According to Alistair Chisholm, director of policy at the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management (CIWEM), while the south west of England isn’t formally designated as being “water scarce”, the region has also seen significant increases in its housing targets under Labour, prompting concerns over its capacity to accommodate the proposed new buildings.

   Pressures are less acute further north, in areas such as Yorkshire, Northumberland, Cumbria and Lancashire – as well as in Wales and Scotland.

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