Severe Drought Has Been Declared in Parts of Six English Counties. What the Government Has Ordered, and What Changes at Home

Severe drought is the last of the Environment Agency's drought stages before recovery, and England had not seen one since 1976. The government says supplies will not be interrupted. Water companies have been told to monitor reservoirs daily, and the Environment Agency to put public supply first where the environment and supply conflict.

On Thursday 15 October 2026 the government declared severe drought in parts of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset, East Sussex and West Sussex. The South East and South West, in its words, “have experienced their driest April to September in over a century”.

A month earlier, on 16 September, the government and the Environment Agency put the chance of a severe drought “in the coming months” at around 1%, and said the country “has not seen a severe drought since 1976”. The Environment Secretary, Dame Angela Eagle, said on Thursday: “This level of drought is something we have not experienced for decades.”

The government’s own line on supply is that “customer water supplies will be uninterrupted”. The declaration is meant to trigger action before any disruption, not to announce one.

What “severe drought” means

The Environment Agency manages drought in four stages after normal: prolonged dry weather, drought, severe drought and recovery. Until Thursday, the worst any part of England had reached this year was drought. Yorkshire moved into that stage on 9 October, and most of the midlands and south were already there.

Severe drought is the red stage. The Agency’s framework describes it as “exceptionally low indicators over a long period of time”, meaning rainfall, rivers, groundwater and reservoirs. At this stage:

Water companies activate their severe drought plans. These are separate from the statutory drought plans companies publish, and they are not in the public domain.
The companies are expected to avoid the worst outcomes. The framework says they “should take all possible measures to remove the need for severe drought restrictions for customers such as rota-cuts or standpipes”. Tighter restrictions on mains water and bringing in supplies from neighbouring companies are among the measures it names.
The framework also says companies “could impose emergency restrictions on domestic and commercial water uses”. Nothing of that kind was announced on Thursday.

The four measures announced

The government’s announcement lists three steps:

Ministers are instructing water companies to carry out daily monitoring of reservoir and river levels, and tougher water quality monitoring.
The Environment Agency is to increase compliance checks on businesses that take water from rivers and groundwater, to make sure they take only what their licences permit.
Local Resilience Forums, the multi-agency groups that plan for civil emergencies, have been stood up so that support can be organised quickly if needed.

The fourth measure is an instruction from the Water Minister, Emma Hardy. She has told the Environment Agency to put public water supplies first in the severe drought areas, wherever there is “an unavoidable trade-off between environmental rules and water supplies”. In practice this lets water companies keep more water in depleted reservoirs, rather than releasing it to keep rivers flowing.

Where the pressure is

The Environment Agency’s weekly report for 9 to 15 October, published the next day, lists the areas now in severe drought as parts of four of its operating areas: Wessex; Devon, Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly; Solent and South Downs; and Kent and South London. It says concerns about public water supply are focused on two reservoirs: Wimbleball on Exmoor and Ardingly in West Sussex.

The same report gives the figures behind the declaration:

England’s reservoirs were 54% full in the week to 13 October, about 21% below average for the time of year.
Eleven reservoirs or reservoir groups are classed as exceptionally low. In the severe drought areas they include Ardingly (South East Water), Clatworthy (Wessex Water), and Colliford, Wimbleball and Stithans (South West Water).
October rainfall to date was 18% of the long-term average in both south-east and south-west England.
Three companies are at drought level 3 on their own four-level scale: South East Water in its Eastbourne and Haywards Heath zones, South West Water in its Wimbleball zone, and Wessex Water across its whole area.

What changes at home

For now, the rules a household lives under are the ones it already had. The Environment Agency’s report says “there have been no changes to the TUBs in place”, meaning the temporary use bans, or hosepipe bans. South East Water’s applies across its whole area, South West Water’s across its area except Bournemouth, and Wessex Water’s across its whole area. Who imposes a ban and what it covers is on the hosepipe bans page.

Two applications that could go further are still with the government. South East Water applied on 2 October, and South West Water on 6 October, for drought orders banning non-essential use. Those bans fall mostly on businesses. What each would restrict is set out in drought permits, drought orders and bans on non-essential use.

The ask from the government and the Environment Agency is the same as it has been since the summer: use less water. The Agency’s chief executive, Philip Duffy: “Recovery depends on both rainfall and how much water we use. We cannot change the weather, but water companies can act now.”

What happens next

The National Drought Group, which brings together the government, the Met Office, regulators, water companies and farmers, was due to meet again on 19 October. Any change it makes to an area’s status will appear in the Environment Agency’s next weekly report. The Met Office forecast in that report was for a largely dry weekend and a mostly settled Monday and Tuesday under high pressure. The rain these areas need was not in it.

Read at source on 17 October 2026: the government’s press release “Government activates plan to protect consumers as severe drought declared in parts of England” (Defra, 15 October 2026); the Environment Agency’s “Dry weather and drought in England: 9 to 15 October 2026” (published 16 October 2026); the Environment Agency’s “Drought: how it is managed in England” (updated 8 April 2026), for the four stages and what each involves; and “Government, Environment Agency, and water companies step up efforts to prevent England remaining in drought by next spring” (16 September 2026), for the 1% chance and the 1976 comparison. Positions change week by week. Water Pages is an independent information service, not a government body or a water company.