Lincoln Water Transfer (LWT) is located to the east of Lincoln along the Fossdyke Navigation that connects the River Trent with Lincoln city. In the late 1990s, irrigation demand in the area was increasing and there was a requirement for greater flexibility in land and irrigation use. Water was available from the existing Trent Witham Ancholme Scheme, which could be transferred from the Fossdyke Navigation into the drains of the Upper Witham Internal Drainage Board, from where it could be reabstracted for irrigation. In 2000, a group of 19 farmers, in collaboration with the Environment Agency, the IDB and NFU, formed the LWT to obtain the necessary licences and agreements to install and operate the transfer system for the benefit of its members. LWT now holds one transfer and abstraction licence, which allows members to abstract water from a total length of 25km of drainage channels and irrigate any of the 4,600ha of land defined in the licence. This approach allows maximum flexibility in water and land use.
Members of LWT are bound by an agreement and protocol, which sets out how water is allocated within the group. No direct trade in water is allowed between members but unwanted water can be returned to a ‘pool’ for redistribution as required. This system has worked well but has to date operated in a situation where the licensed volume has been greater than demand. Members make weekly returns which are collated by the UWIDB and members pay pro-rata for the scheme running costs.
Members identified three main advantages for their collective action (i) a collective voice was needed in order to have enough influence with the Agency for them to grant an abstraction licence for irrigation (ii) the scheme as designed gives more flexibility than individual licences could, and (iii) it has reduced both start up and recurrent costs.
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