Consultation on our draft Drought Plan 2027
All water companies in England and Wales are required by the government to produce a Drought Plan. Our Drought Plan explains the actions we’d expect to take in the event of a drought to maintain essential supplies of water for our customers. Our draft Drought Plan 2027 has been produced to comply with the statutory requirements introduced in the Water Act 2003, the Drought Plan (England) Direction 2025 and Environment Agency guidelines.
Our current Drought Plan was published in 2022. We're now consulting on our 2027 plan, which will be active between 2027 and 2032. View our draft Drought Plan and accompanying documents to find out more.
- Draft Drought Plan 2027pdf | 2.9 MB
- DP27 non-technical summarypdf | 1.4 MB
- DP27 appendix C - Drought permit optionspdf | 768.3 KB
- DP27 appendix D - Water situation reportingpdf | 1.7 MB
- DP27 appendix F - DEL methodology and worked examplespdf | 1.6 MB
- DP27 appendix G - Groundwater resource trackingpdf | 372 KB
- DP27 appendix H - Communication planpdf | 337.2 KB
- DP27 appendix J - Liaison with the EA and data exchangepdf | 369.2 KB
- DP27 appendix K - Drought Plan consulteespdf | 353.5 KB
- DP27 appendix L - Demand-side measurespdf | 879.1 KB
- DP27 appendix M - Drought permit environmental assessment reportspdf | 218.6 KB
- DP27 appendix N - Drought response surfacespdf | 1.2 MB
- DP27 appendix Q - WRSE statement of intentpdf | 372.7 KB
- DP27 appendix R - Learning from the 2025 droughtpdf | 628.4 KB
- TWUL draft DP27 HRA screening reportpdf | 1.1 MB
- TW draft DP27 SEA environmental reportpdf | 7.9 MB
Get involved
We want to hear from you. We’re consulting on our draft plan for 8 weeks from 28 May to 23 July.
To provide feedback, please send your representation to the Secretary of State via email at water.resources@defra.gov.uk. Copy in waterresources@thameswater.co.uk and include 'Thames Water' in the subject line.
Representations by post should be sent to:
Drought Plan Consultation
Defra
Drought
Seacole
2 Marsham Street
London
SW1P 4DF
We’ll consider all representations received by 23 July. Then we'll publish our Statement of Response by 29 October, outlining any changes we've made to our plan in response to the consultation. We’ll incorporate any changes to our revised draft Drought Plan. We'll submit this to Secretary of State and then publish our final Drought Plan in 2027, once approved.
National security
We followed the Security and Emergency Measures Directions (SEMD) Framework from 2022, updated in 2024, to prepare our Drought Plan. The guidance says sensitive information must not be published. This includes details about the locations of abstractions and critical infrastructure. We've redacted site names that could identify our abstraction sites and assets in the main report and appendices. The appendices for the Environmental Assessment Reports (EARs) on drought permit options across our Water Resource Zones have also been redacted. These reports include specific operational details, maps, and grid references, as the environmental impact assessment must be thorough and site-specific.