Quick answer: The National Drought Group met on 15 September and government published the outcome on 16 September 2026. The headline number is new and it is specific: England needs 120% of typical rainfall over the next seven months for all areas to be considered out of drought. Almost three-quarters of England is still in drought. Under the Environment Agency’s most likely scenario, Devon & Cornwall and East Anglia are still in drought at the start of April 2027. Under the dry scenario — 80% of average rainfall, with roughly a one-in-four likelihood — seven areas are. Buried in the same release is a line that matters more to new-build than the rainfall does: government will “respond soon” to the consultation on improving water efficiency in new homes.
The number, and why it is a hard one
Until now, the honest answer to “when does this end?” has been that it depends on the winter. The Environment Agency has now modelled it and put a figure on it.
120% of typical rainfall, September to March, is what it takes for every area to be out of drought by spring.
For scale: between September 2025 and March 2026, England received 130% of typical rainfall, and that is what pulled the country out of last year’s drought. So 120% is not fantastical — it happened last winter. But it is a long way above normal, and it has to happen on top of a deficit that is considerably deeper than the one 130% cleared.
How the deficit got this deep, in the EA’s own figures:
- Spring 2026 delivered just 56% of typical rainfall.
- Summer delivered 64% of expected rainfall.
- July was the driest on record; August the joint-hottest, with five heatwaves across the summer.
- Demand for water rose by as much as 30% on the hottest days.
Drought, as the release puts it, is only over when rivers, groundwaters and reservoirs are back to normal. Rivers respond to rain in days. Groundwater and reservoirs do not — and both are still receding.
The three scenarios, by area
This is the part to read if you have sites in the south or east.
Most likely (Met Office three-month outlook and seasonal indications): the north recovers first. Cumbria & Lancashire and Greater Manchester, Merseyside & Cheshire could move to recovery in October and be back to normal in November. By December most areas see a fragile recovery, but four stay in drought — Devon & Cornwall, East Anglia, Thames Valley and the West Midlands. By February most places are normal. At the start of spring 2027, Devon & Cornwall and East Anglia are still in drought, entering the traditionally dry months already carrying a deficit.
Average rainfall (100%): patchy recovery from October. Most areas stay in drought for the rest of 2026. By January, everywhere except East Anglia is in recovery or normal. At the start of April, East Anglia may still be in drought and Devon & Cornwall in fragile recovery.
Dry (80% of average, around a one-in-four likelihood): the four northern areas move to recovery in November and are normal by January. Drought persists across the midlands and south for the rest of 2026. By the start of April 2027, East Anglia, Lincolnshire & Northamptonshire, Thames Valley, Devon & Cornwall, Wessex, Solent & the South Downs and the West Midlands are still in drought.
Overall, the EA puts it at roughly a one-in-four chance that around half the country is still in drought next spring, and around a 1% chance of a severe drought in the coming months. England has not seen a severe drought since 1976.
The Met Office expects the second half of September to turn drier, particularly in the south, where the rain is needed most. The developing El Niño raises the chance of a wet, stormy late autumn and early winter, then colder and calmer conditions later in the season.
What this means for infiltration testing
This is the first official, area-by-area projection running through to April 2027, and it is directly useful evidence for a drainage report.
Two things follow.
First, the autumn testing window is not a normal one. We have written repeatedly this summer that a soakage test taken in dry-season conditions reads flatteringly, and that the honest way to handle it is to record the conditions and treat the result as a best case rather than a design case. That argument now has a government projection behind it: in most of the south and east, the ground you test in October will not be the ground the soakaway has to perform in.
Second, you can now name the scenario. Rather than writing “conditions were dry at the time of testing”, a drainage strategy can say which EA scenario the area sits in and what the projected status is at the start of April 2027. A lead local flood authority can check that in one click. It is a far stronger position than an unsupported caveat.
The EA also makes a point worth repeating to anyone who assumes a wet autumn solves it: flood water is hard to store for public supply, because it arrives too fast and carries too much sediment and nitrate run-off. Heavy autumn rain can produce surface flooding and still leave groundwater short.
The Part G line
The release lists government actions, and one of them is a commitment rather than a fact:
Continued work on mandatory water efficiency labelling and will respond soon to a consultation on improving water efficiency in new homes.
That is the Part G reform. The proposal is to cut the water efficiency standard for new homes from 125 to 105 litres per person per day, with the optional tighter standard also on the table. Water UK backed it publicly in August and the government response has been outstanding since.
“Soon” is not a date. But it is the first time in months that a dated government publication has put the new-homes water efficiency response on a near-term footing, and it appears in a release whose entire premise is that demand reduction has to continue. If you are pricing fittings schedules or writing water calculations for plots that will be built out in 2027, that is the direction to plan around.
The rest of the package
For completeness, the other measures announced or restated: a £65 million package for farmers affected by drought, including up to £15 million for on-farm reservoirs; £100 million to strengthen response capacity for extreme weather and wildfires; nine new reservoirs by 2050 alongside desalination and water transfers; and a change in the Planning and Infrastructure Act allowing non-water-sector companies to build reservoirs that are automatically treated as nationally significant infrastructure projects.
The National Drought Group is now meeting weekly as part of a heightened incident response.
The short version
England needs 120% of typical rainfall over seven months to clear the drought, and the most likely outcome is that Devon & Cornwall and East Anglia do not clear it. For anyone producing drainage evidence this autumn, the modelling is free, published, area-specific and dated — use it. And a government response on water efficiency in new homes is now flagged as coming soon.
SoakMonkey will run BRE Digest 365 from your test results and produce a printable design for the drainage strategy. The judgement it cannot make for you is whether the conditions on test day represent the conditions the soakaway has to survive — and this week the Environment Agency has given you the numbers to answer that in writing.
Sources: GOV.UK — Government, Environment Agency, and water companies step up efforts to prevent England remaining in drought by next spring (16 September 2026) · GOV.UK — Dry weather and drought in England 2026: summary reports · GOV.UK — Water situation reports for England · GOV.UK — Drought: how it is managed in England