Southern Water told to slash abstractions from protected river

Southern Water must slash abstraction from a protected river by more than half, the Environment Agency (EA) has said.

The water company is currently allowed to take 136 million litres of water per day from the River Test, a site of special scientific interest (SSSI). But the EA has plans to cut this to 80Ml/d. The annual cap of 49,915 million litres would also fall to 29,200Ml, to protect the ecology of the river.