Dear Professor Malby
Thank you for the support for the work we are doing in drilling new bore holes
You raise two other issues
  1. That we should do more to reduce water consumption through a campaign (especially given that you say European standards are at 80ml/person / day and Uk standards are 140ml/person/day
  2. ​That we should have a campaign generally to help people to reduce their water consumption both across Yorkshire and in Ilkley specifically (and that the campaign should include the deployment of water butts)
On both of these issues there is good news:
1) we are not far adrift of European standards for water consumption here in Yorkshire (the average data for Europe is higher than your numbers (EurEau has the average in Europe in 2021 at 124ml/person/day) and in Yorkshire the average over the last three years is UK leading at 125.7ml/person/day. Indeed the levels in Yorkshire are similar to our near neighbours in the Netherlands and better than those in France. However as you say in Eastern Europe consumption is significantly lower.
2) we do have extensive and proactive measures in place to both encourage people to reduce their consumption and to help them to do that. We have for example an “always on” campaign which runs as the title suggests all the time to encourage people to save water (Use less. Save more.) We have dialled that up this year with 173m opportunities to see and hear the campaign we have paid for. We also deliver our messages on social media (you may well have seen the weekly videos that our Director of Clean and Waste Water and Head of water production have been putting out on social media for example) and in person at face to face events (like the RHS Wentworth flower show, the Great Yorkshire Show, the Ilkley Carnival and Addingham Gala), school visits, and so on. We are also working with Ofwat and other water companies on a national campaign — Yorkshire is likely to be one of the test locations for this campaign.
As additional measures we also offer free water efficiency visits for households and business customers.  During these visits we provide information about water efficiency, install tailored water saving devices and identify any sources of water loss. We are doing specific interventions with our highest consuming business customers extending the material to include rainwater harvesting, greywater reuse, and water recycling. And we are targeting a marketing campaign at businesses too.
These measures are more cost effective than water butts because the best benefit of a water butt in reducing water consumption only comes where the properties then use the water for gardening/ managing an allotment, and if they are correctly fitted and well maintained. So we keep water butts in our range of solutions but they are not the only one. In Ilkley we did install 200 smart water butts in a trial helping both efficiency and sewer flooding initiatives and I understand you are discussing the focus on water butts for reducing sewer flooding with our bathing water team.
All of this is underpinned by the smart metering programme we have underway — by 2030 1.5m of our 2.3m customers will have smart meters giving them more information to help them manage their consumption. Next week we launch our online portal allowing customers with smart meters to track water usage through the portal which also has lots of hints and tips for water saving.
So in summary we have relatively low per capita consumption of water in Yorkshire — both vis a vis the UK and Western Europe — and we are working hard to bring this level even lower whilst at the same time we look for more opportunities to make our system more resilient overall.
Regards
Nicola Shaw