Ofwat has published its second public consultation on a five-year £100m Water Efficiency Fund (WEF) to find ways to help people reduce their water usage.

The WEF is set to go live in 2025 and will operate alongside planned work by water companies in England and Wales to halve leakage and develop up to £14bn of water supply infrastructure projects in the coming decades.

Current projections state England and Wales will need upwards of 4 billion extra litres of water per day by 2050 – around 25 per cent of the water currently put into supply.

The WEF will focus on a behaviour change campaign to promote sustainability and competitions to seek out the best innovations and schemes.

Paul Hickey, senior director at Ofwat, said: “To secure long-term supplies of affordable, resilient water supplies we need to do three things: tackle wastage, boost supply and reduce demand. Companies know they have to deliver on the first and have been set a target to halve leakage. On supply, we are driving ahead with multi-billion pound projects to deliver new sources of water, including several new reservoirs. The final piece of the puzzle is to reduce demand.”

The impact of climate change is seen through longer, hotter spells of weather and more intense rainfall that runs off the land. Using less water will reduce the volume of water taken from rivers and aquifers which can impact sensitive habitats; increase resilience to drought; and reduce the likelihood of supply interruptions.

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