Drought southern England - How will you cope? - What can be done?

[alex-adam]

Drought conditions have been decalared in large parts of central and southern England.

How will you cope? What can be done?

BBC Link:

BBC News - South East latest part of England officially in drought

[Newton]

Move to Wales or the north west!

[Florence Fennel]

Bath with a friend and syphon the water on to the veg?

[Headfry]

Really odd, looked at the link and Essex is not mentioned....Mum often on hose pipe ban very early in the year... May time is not unusual. River near me is ok'isk, as in its flowing but usually the water meadows are flooded...not this year, and the river has not even been high.
Poor wildlife......
Went to my sailing club on Sunday..... its a reservoir and the water level is really quite high there.

[Two_Sheds]

Bath with a friend and syphon the water on to the veg?

I siphon our bath water, but you shouldn't use it on veg, just flowers (because of the risk of bacteria in the dirty water).
I've tried the cheap (Draper) siphons, but they easily fail. This is the one I've had for 4 years now, it's been great.

[donnakebab]

Bath with a friend and syphon the water on to the veg?

Mat check out that Companion Planting thread

[Mikey]

If you want to fill your watering can up, you can leave it outside here if you like.

[Hilary B]

The sooner everyone who uses mains water is on a meter the better!
If people had to pay according to what they use, it would deter waste. Along with that would come the need to educate people in how to reduce water use without cutting down on essentials.
You can use bathwater to water non-root veg, but perhaps NOT the ones that grow underground!

[Mikey]

I'm on a meter, and pay more as a three person household than my neighbour with 5. I wish we didn't have the meter to be honest, but when you have a young-un who has a bath everyday, you get through quite a bit of water.

I'm not overly wasteful either, I never leave it running to rinse, or water the garden with it, I have butts for that. I would be very careful getting a meter if you have children.

[Hilary B]

I'm on a meter, and pay more as a three person household than my neighbour with 5. I wish we didn't have the meter to be honest, but when you have a young-un who has a bath everyday, you get through quite a bit of water.

I'm not overly wasteful either, I never leave it running to rinse, or water the garden with it, I have butts for that. I would be very careful getting a meter if you have children.

Point is, if water is a limited resource, a meter might be painful, but it IS fair!

[Mikey]

Water is not a limited resource, we are surrounded by the stuff, maybe parts of England need to consider desalination.

[Snadger]

I hope France doesn't suffer a drought as a French company owns ours! (Or is it Chinese?)

[WendyC]

Our district council are meeting tonight and look like are set to approve another 550+ houses for our village. Great idea in an area that is already struggling for water. Tarmac over countryside doesn't help any rain water get into the ground to build up the water table too. We are due water meters this year.

[Thelma Sanders]

Water is not a limited resource, we are surrounded by the stuff, maybe parts of England need to consider desalination.

as long as people are prepared to pay for it - it's a very expensive way to get water in energy terms, whereas it's free from the sky, it just needs better storage than we have at present. Building more reservoirs would be much less costly and save much more energy in the long term.

[BarleySugar]

When we had the last hosepipe ban I wasn't popular, but my garden and greenhouse produced great veg (I didn't have any root crops due to lack of space.
I made everyone use the overbath shower, with the plug in. Kissykit insisted on going first, so she didn't stand in other people's water. Then I siphoned it down into the water butt and used from there. There was a bit of sediment in the bottom, but 5 people, all showering, meant we collected a good bit of grey water.