Affinity Water will be improving its capacity to store water in a series of projects, starting with constructing a new service reservoir near the village of Preston, Hertfordshire.

The new service reservoir will provide an additional 20 million litres of storage at an estimated construction cost of £8.5 million and will help build the long-term resilience of the storage systems and mitigate against possible loss of supplies to customers in these areas.

The investment will also help to ensure that less water is taken from the region’s rare chalk aquifers.

Population growth, climate change and the demand for water are putting significant pressure on the local environment and water resources in Affinity Water’s supply area.

Affinity Water’s recently launched Water Resources Management Plan (WRMP) explains how without action – the area Affinity Water supplies could face a shortfall of up to 449 million litres a day by 2050.

The WRMP provides a roadmap for a reliable, resilient, sustainable, efficient and affordable water supply to customers between 2025 and 2075, whilst taking care of the local environment.

The actions include reducing customer demand, driving leakage down further than ever before, metering, significant investment in new infrastructure for new sources of water and working across the water industry to plan and share resources regionally.

Jaymin Chauhan, Senior Asset Planning Manager said:

“Achieving planned sustainability reductions will help to reduce our footprint on our local chalk stream ecosystem and will result in more water being left in the environment. This scheme is needed to support our plans to mitigate the impact of sustainability reductions already in place and those planned for the next five years.

“Our Water Resources Management Plan sets out our plans to provide a reliable, resilient, efficient, and affordable water supply to our customers between 2025 and 2075. It highlights the challenges we face and how we intend to maintain the balance between water supply and demand, while protecting our environment.

“Our region is home to around 10 per cent of the UK’s chalk streams, as globally rare habitat. We know that 65% of the public drinking water we supply comes from the chalk aquifer, the same aquifer that chalk streams rely on for their flow. Schemes like Chaul End and Preston will help build the resilience of our systems and protect the environment”