The vital importance of a long-term water resilience plan has been underlined as the Horticultural Trades Association (HTA) stepped up its campaign to ensure that water-related issues faced by its members are recognised and addressed by the government.
As part of this work, the HTA’s Chief Executive, Fran Barnes, attended this week’s National Drought Group and wrote to the Environment Secretary and the Minister responsible for water, urging the delivery of a long-term water resilience strategy. The HTA has also published an updated water briefing for its members.
The warm, dry spring may have initially boosted sales but the prolonged hot and dry weather has come with significant consequences to the horticultural industry and highlights an urgent need for action on water resilience, beyond short-term interventions on immediate crises from flooding to drought.
Fran Barnes, Chief Executive of the Horticultural Trades Association (HTA), said: “No member I’ve spoken to takes water for granted. Yet businesses within the environmental horticulture sector operate within a system that offers little support and presents many barriers to water resilience. Growers that want to invest in their own water storage face complex planning hurdles and many are forced to rely on expensive, treated mains water simply to keep their crops alive. Each summer, misleading 'hosepipe ban' headlines target our sector, confuse customers, dampen plant sales, and damage confidence, just when trade should be thriving.
“I have written to the Environment Secretary, Rt Hon Steve Reed MP, urging him to act on creating a plan for water resilience that supports our members in creating their own water resilience strategies, making it easier for them to invest in reservoirs or new water-saving technologies. We can no longer go from flood to drought. Water resilience is an essential part of UK infrastructure.
“Environmental Horticulture is vitally important to the UK’s climate change mitigation plans, improving biodiversity, helping with urban cooling and flood management, but a lack of water resilience and headlines of ‘hosepipe bans’ rather than wider messages about responsible water use are a missed opportunity that undermines our sector.
“We need strategic change. I have made a clear call to government for a new focus, debate and action on water resilience, unlocking the barriers to water storage and ensuring horticulture experts can be part of a constructive way forward for the UK’s water sector.”
Garden centres and ornamental plant growers use about 20 million cubic metres of water each year the equivalent of just 0.2% of the UK's total water use. However, messaging around water restrictions – often referred to as hosepipe bans – can have a direct, adverse effect on the sector.
The HTA is continuing its water resilience journey with a Sustainability Roadmap, highlighting the need to increase water efficiency in the industry, whilst raising understanding in government of the critical importance of water to ornamental horticulture and landscaping.
Facts and figures:
- UK garden centres and ornamental growers use around 20 million cubic metres of water a year – that is just 0.2% of the UK's total water use.
- 50% of UK ornamental plant growers use rainwater capture systems, and 32% do not, but would like to.
- 41% of growers use reservoirs to store water, minimising reliance on mains during times of shortage.
- 58% of garden centres use automated watering systems for at least some of their watering, increasing efficiency and reducing workload for staff.
- 74% of the water a garden centre uses is for watering plants, 8% on customer toilets, and 13% on the café/restaurant. The rest is used for other purposes.
