Droughts are naturally occurring events. There is no single definition of drought, but all droughts involve an extended period of below normal rainfall. Whether a drought impacts the environment, customer water supplies or other water resources depends on the individual characteristics of each one. All droughts differ in severity, area covered and duration.
For the purposes of this drought plan, we’re referring to an event that lasts a minimum of two or three months. This means that a few days or weeks of particularly hot and/or dry weather doesn’t count as a drought. Periods of this sort will class as heatwaves if there are prolonged periods of higher than normal temperatures. Heatwaves can cause water companies short-term issues by drawing down levels in treated water reservoirs. However, events like this are too short-term to fall within the scope of this plan and are covered by our hot weather plans.
It’s a statutory requirement for water companies to produce and maintain a Drought Plan, and update them at least every five years. Our Drought Plan sets out how we’ll manage our resources and supply system in dry years, to maintain our service to our customers. Our plan aims to balance the interests of customers, the environment and the wider economy. The plan helps us and our stakeholders make the right decisions at the right time and shows how we will provide a continuous supply of drinking water to our customers during a drought.
Current Drought Plan
We updated our current Drought Plan in 2019 and held a public consultation on the draft Drought Plan between July and September 2019. We reviewed the feedback received during the consultation, and prepared and published a Statement of Response (SoR) that detailed how we addressed the comments and suggestions that we received from our stakeholders.
Following permission from the Welsh Government, we published our Drought Plan in May 2020.
We also undertook a Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA), a Water Framework Directive (WFD) assessment and a Habitats Regulations Assessment (HRA) of our Drought Plan to take environmental impacts into account. To request copies of our WFD and HRA assessment reports please contact us.
No information has been excluded from our Drought Plan on the grounds of commercial confidentiality. It does not contain any information that would compromise national security interests.
Draft Drought Plan 2025
We’re currently updating our Drought Plan and are following the process below. So far, we’ve held pre-consultation with our stakeholders, prepared our draft plan using the updated guidance and received agreement from the Welsh Ministers to publish it for consultation.
We’re now at the public consultation stage and have published our draft plan for consultation on 22nd January 2025. The documents are available to download below, or to read a paper copy please ask for it at our Packsaddle office reception on Wrexham Road, Rhostyllen, Wrexham, LL14 4EH.
If you’d like to provide comments then these should be sent in writing to the Welsh Ministers by email at WaterEPC@gov.wales or to Water Policy Branch, Cathays Park, Cardiff, CF10 3NQ by Sunday 16th March. If you submit a comment by email, we would appreciate it if you could please also copy us in at FutureConsultation@hdcymru.co.uk
We’ve completed a Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA), a Water Framework Directive (WFD) assessment, a Habitats Regulations Assessment (HRA) and an Environmental Assessment Report (EAR) for our Drought Plan to evaluate environmental impacts.
If you would like any further information or you have any questions, please contact us.
No information has been excluded from our draft Drought Plan on the grounds of commercial confidentiality. It does not contain any information that would compromise national security interests.