In August 2022, Daily Mail Online reported that Thames Water's desalination plant at Beckton in east London was unavailable during a drought summer. The 250 million pound Gateway Water Treatment Works had opened in 2010 as a reserve for 400,000 homes and was described as the only seawater desalination plant in the UK. Instead of the originally stated 150 million litres a day, Thames Water now cited up to 100 million litres, around 100,000 m³/day. Planned work had taken it out of service.
The report exposed the limits of a dry-weather reserve: the UK's only desalination plant was offline in a drought summer, and Thames Water did not rule out usage bans either way.
Source: Daily Mail Online