Right now, farmers face two hurdles to building reservoirs: getting permission to construct one and then getting permission to take the water to fill it (an abstraction license). Both can be slow and costly, with fees running into six figures. So much so, that only 34 on-farm reservoirs have been completed in the past five years. 

Gavin Lane, President of the CLA, which represents 28,000 farmers said: 

"Today's emergency meeting has to mark a reset. For years, farmers have been watching crops die in the ground because there's not enough water. Yet every winter, rain pours down across fields that can be desperately short of water by summer. Farmers should be able to capture more of that when it's plentiful and store it for the dry months ahead.  

"Instead, planning rules make reservoirs slow and costly to build, while rigid restrictions on taking water to fill them can leave farmers short when they need it the most. Farmers are now spending £45K on average before they even put a spade in the ground. With so much money at stake and no guarantee of an outcome, many simply can't afford to take the risk. 

"Burnham must take seriously an issue ministers have ignored for years, and start with the solutions we already know work, from cutting red tape around farm reservoirs to investing in healthier soils. Farmers have endured three droughts in five years. They are resilient people, but unless government act now, they might not come back from this harvest." 

The CLA is calling for three core changes: 

• Reform permitted development rights and the abstraction licensing system to make it easier for farmers to build on-farm reservoirs
• Extend the Annual Investment Allowance to structures and buildings, including farm reservoirs, replacing the current allowance, which is spread over 33.3 years
• Allow land managers to conduct prescribed burning without a licence for each individual burn site, including on designated sites