The UK has a major leakage problem. A fifth of water supplies are lost to leaking pipes, and hot weather has increased the colossal waste of this increasingly valuable resource.

The combination of heatwaves and low rainfall we have seen in recent months has dried out the ground and contracted the soil. This means the 265,160-mile network of underground pipes will have lost support as the soil shifts, with the resulting movement causing cracks and leaks.

Water companies in England and Wales are already leaking an astonishing 2.6 billion litres of treated water every day – enough to fill 1,150 Olympic-sized swimming pools. Parts of the UK, and the south and south east of England in particular, are running perilously low on water with most of the country currently in drought.

In England alone, 30 million people have had their water use restricted through measures such as hosepipe bans after the driest July on record saw just a tenth of the long-term average rainfall for the month, and less than half the long-term average in August. These have left already-strained reservoir levels nearly 20 per cent lower than usual at this time of the year, with recent rainfall doing little to replenish stocks.

But all of this is nothing........

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