Drought Plan

All water companies are required by the Government to produce a drought plan which sets outs how we’ll manage our water supply during a prolonged period of dry weather to make sure we meet the interests of our customers and the environment.  

Our Drought Plan is reviewed and updated every five years in line with regulatory requirements and follows guidelines set by our environmental regulator, the Environment Agency. 

Our current Drought Plan 2022 was published in April 2022, and these documents are available to view at the bottom of this webpage. 

Draft Drought Plan 2027 

We've recently been given permission by the Secretary of State to publish our draft Drought Plan 2027 for public consultation.  

The public consultation was launched on 22 May 2026; it will be open for eight weeks until 17 July 2026 and we welcome your views. You can respond to the consultation by sending your written representations with Yorkshire Water in the subject field to the Secretary of State by emailing water.resources@defra.gov.uk. Please also copy in our water resources mailbox waterresources@yorkshirewater.co.uk.  

You can also send written representations by post to: Drought Plan Consultation, Defra, Drought, Seacole, 2 Marsham Street, London, SW1P 4DF.  

We’ll consider all the representations received by the close of the consultation and will publish our Statement of Response and revised Drought Plan by 23 October 2026 in line with the regulatory requirements.  The Secretary of State will then consider whether our final plan can be published which is likely to be in early 2027. 

No information has been excluded from the Drought Plan on the grounds of commercial confidentiality. Sensitive site-specific information has been removed, or presented in a non-specific manner, in the interest of national security.  

If you would like to view a paper copy of our draft Drought Plan 2027, please contact us at waterresources@yorkshirewater.co.uk.