Relentless UK heatwaves turn ‘green and pleasant land’ brown
SkimNews Take
The simultaneous triggers of emergency harvesting, hosepipe bans covering 23 million people, and record wildfires reveal a compounding infrastructure strain — each sector's response diverts resources from the others, turning one weather event into a cascading resilience test.
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- England's Environment Agency and Natural Resources Wales declared drought across half of England and all of Wales this week — the third such declaration in five years, following four record-breaking heatwaves since May.
- England received just 7% of its long-term average July rainfall, with southern England at 1%, and the Thames at Reading recorded its lowest ever water level.
- Approximately 23 million people across England and Wales are now under hosepipe bans, though water companies say drinking supplies remain secure thanks to reservoirs still close to expected levels from winter rainfall.
- Firefighters responded to 393 wildfires across England and Wales in July — the busiest month on record — and hundreds of people have been evacuated due to fire threats, compared with roughly 50 in all of 2025.
- Cairngorms national park in the Scottish Highlands suffered the worst fires in living memory, while smoke from blazes in north Wales's Rhinogydd mountains was visible from space.
- Riverford Organic Farmers in Devon has run three of its four reservoirs dry and begun harvesting earlier in the day to protect crops and pickers from heat stress.
- The Met Office projects UK summers will be 1C–6C hotter and up to 60% drier by 2070 compared with 1990.
Why it matters: With half of England and all of Wales in drought, 23 million people face hosepipe bans and farmers are already rationing irrigation across reservoirs that have run dry months ahead of schedule. This is the third such declaration in five years, and the Met Office's projections of 60% drier summers by 2070 now sit alongside 393 July wildfires — the busiest month on record for crews.
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