Reserving water abstraction rights

We are at a pivotal moment in managing England’s water resources. In June 2025, we published our revised National Framework for Water Resources. It highlighted the potential for a public water supply deficit of up to 5 billion litres a day in England if there isn’t enhanced and sustained action to respond to the pressures.  

Access to water resources, particularly reliable abstraction directly from the environment, will become more limited in the future. Without appropriate action, we face prospects of trade-offs, including: 

• limited growth 
• interruptions to water supply 
• damage to the water environment 
• limitations to food production 
• reduced energy security, and, 
• a lack of water supply resilience 

Managing these challenges requires significant resource development at a strategic scale, and sustained effort in demand management. To support this, government and regulators collectively need to make sure that policies enable the delivery of strategic solutions. This will involve optimising the resilience and connectivity benefits that they bring, whilst managing the competitive and conflicting demands for water that their dominant size and long lead-time may cause. 

At the heart of water resources management is the abstraction and impoundment licensing system. This is the primary instrument to regulate abstraction activities, and the source of protected rights for licence holders.  

The proposals in this consultation enhance how we make licensing decisions in several important ways.  

• Firstly, they create a process for reserving abstraction rights early for strategic schemes ahead of their operation, providing certainty for major infrastructure projects.  
• Secondly, they strengthen the linkage between water resources planning and abstraction licensing. This is so that decisions reflect a justification of need which has been assessed appropriately as part of a strategic planning process including the comparison of alternative options.  
• Thirdly, they establish a transparent hierarchy for abstraction rights allocation when competing demands cannot be managed. This will support decision-making for infrastructure development in both the short-term and the long-term. 

The proposed changes recognise the importance of public water supply, energy infrastructure, food production and other government priorities which relate to water use. Each plays a vital role in the economy, and each depends on reliable access to water to thrive.  

We see the regional planning tier of water resources management being well-placed to facilitate collaborative solutions and to inform government priorities reflected in a hierarchy. By bringing together water users at a regional level, innovative solutions such as joint resources development and abstraction rights sharing or trading could help account for the needs of all parties more effectively before applications are made to us for abstraction or impoundment licences.  

The decisions we make following this consultation, together with implementation of the National Framework for Water Resources and the likely strengthening of a regional tier of water planning (following the recommendations from the Independent Water Commission), will influence how water resources are managed for years to come.  

Your comments to this consultation will be used to guide decisions about how to reserve water abstraction rights for the future while enabling continued access to water resources in the short-term.  

We encourage you to engage fully and help us develop an abstraction rights-based decision-making framework that facilitates strategic solutions, enhances water resources resilience, and supports economic growth while protecting the environment.   

Richard Thompson 

Deputy Director for Water Resources, Environment Agency