Householders may have to pay more to use more to protect water supplies Mr Norton said the current shortages - which have led water companies to impose hosepipe bans throughout the country and threaten homeowners with £1,000 fines for filling paddling pools or watering the garden - should come as no surprise. He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "We have known for some time that our water resources were going to become quite stressed, partly because of the population increase in south east England but also because of the impact of climate change right across the UK. It shouldn't be a surprise that we are experiencing these difficulties now. He added that while "interconnection" of water between adjacent areas could be one solution, the long distance transfer of supplies from Scotland to the south would be "extremely expensive" to set up and run. Water storage was another way forward but did not necessarily have to be "big reservoirs that people have in their mind." Storage starts at home with rain water butts and there are a whole range of other intermediate ways between rainwater butts and massive reservoirs which we can investigate and use. Mr Norton said the key was "taking advantage of the higher rainfall that we have during winter and devising a whole range of different storage options."