will WE learn any thing from the rcent hot weather?

Those last 2 sentences contradict themselves, don’t they? (Storing tap water for a few weeks? And observing use-by dates)
You can actually of course store tap water in your fridge, ideally in a metal, not plastic, bottle, but I think the quantities you might need to cover cooking as well as drinking would necessitate a big fridge!) but given that the water companies distribute big containers of drinking water when the supply is threatened or cut off, I don’t see the problem.

How, out of interest, do you see most gardeners having their water issues sorted ?
Water butts will only store rain water which means it has to rain, hosepipe bans might last well into this winter so sprinklers are out, perhaps rethink the whole idea of gardens?
Personally I think agriculture and our food supplies are a much greater problem than my petunias or lawn and this applies right across Europe and beyond.
More and better reservoirs, better planned, better managed and better maintained infrastructure must lie at the root of managing our future water supplies.

It's time that houses were built with separation of grey water, preferably into tanks, from sewage so it can be used for flushing toilets and and on the garden. If water is on its way to becoming a scarce resource we have to do more to conserve and use it affectively than just build more reservoirs.

And fix leaks

They were talking about this on the 5 am farming programme on r4 this morning.
Suggestion was smaller more local reservoirs, as well as dividing water into grey and potable.
Ridiculous that we use clean water in our toilets instead of grey. It has to be separate.

My daughter lives in the countryside, she has her water straight from the mountains, my friend has a well, but she found out that unless she had a generator its not reliable, when we had a power cut the pump in the well stopped too, so no water no electricity,
In my old place when we had water shortage we used the washing machine water for the garden,

I now have a water butt, and I expect would buy water in,

MaizieD

It's time that houses were built with separation of grey water, preferably into tanks, from sewage so it can be used for flushing toilets and and on the garden. If water is on its way to becoming a scarce resource we have to do more to conserve and use it affectively than just build more reservoirs.

I so agree
And modern house construction makes it hard to repurpose eg washing up or bathwater.
Our old (Victorian) house in London had external down pipes from the bathroom and kitchen to ‘open’ drains (covered).
I remember dropping a (hard) contact lens in the sink upstairs , running downstairs to hold a strainer over the bottom of the downpipe while DH ran the taps hard to flush it down. ( I caught it, re sterilised it and was able to use it again! )
It would have been easy enough to attach something to a down pipe eg from the bathroom or shower for watering the garden.
But these are a drop in the ocean - pun intended- in the light of the wider issues.

We have 3 water butts in the garden, they were empty before the recent rains.
As for standing water there are nasty bacteria, which patients pick up in hospitals , or swimming in lakes, which can be highly resistant to antibiotics. A friend is in this situation now. She has been very poorly.

If the men in grey suits could cut a little red tape to make it easier for farmers to dig their own reservoirs think how much water would be collected 🤷‍♀️
But no 🤬 they have put every obstacle in their way short of making it illegal.

www.farmersguide.co.uk/rural/environmental/industry-calls-for-simpler-rules-to-build-on-farm-reservoirs/

Don’t your farms have dams ? Even small farms have dams . How do the cattle and sheep drink if there is no water ? Surely there must be a dam on every farm?

I think what we've learned is that water supplies need to stop being a cash cow and need much better investment and management than at present.

I exclude my own WA who have issued no bans, just some sensible advice. They still have 60% of their reserves to draw on Despite having had almost no rain since May around here.

A nationalised supply of water with that management in charge? That would be a lesson well learned.

MawsRosie

Those last 2 sentences contradict themselves, don’t they? (Storing tap water for a few weeks? And observing use-by dates)
You can actually of course store tap water in your fridge, ideally in a metal, not plastic, bottle, but I think the quantities you might need to cover cooking as well as drinking would necessitate a big fridge!) but given that the water companies distribute big containers of drinking water when the supply is threatened or cut off, I don’t see the problem.

How, out of interest, do you see most gardeners having their water issues sorted ?
Water butts will only store rain water which means it has to rain, hosepipe bans might last well into this winter so sprinklers are out, perhaps rethink the whole idea of gardens?
Personally I think agriculture and our food supplies are a much greater problem than my petunias or lawn and this applies right across Europe and beyond.
More and better reservoirs, better planned, better managed and better maintained infrastructure must lie at the root of managing our future water supplies.

I completely agree.

Lathyrus3

I think what we've learned is that water supplies need to stop being a cash cow and need much better investment and management than at present.

I exclude my own WA who have issued no bans, just some sensible advice. They still have 60% of their reserves to draw on Despite having had almost no rain since May around here.

A nationalised supply of water with that management in charge? That would be a lesson well learned.

I agree and most of us have agreed for years that’s it’s an utter travesty that utilities are privately owned.