Catastrophe this Winter?

Our regional weather man has predicted a wet, mild winter ahead.

MaizieD

GrannyGravy13

Best top up the wine cellar.

I suppose drinking yourself into oblivion is one way of coping with food shortages...

Oh dear, SOH bypass?

GrannyGravy13

Best top up the wine cellar.

I suppose drinking yourself into oblivion is one way of coping with food shortages...

Best top up the wine cellar.

Grammaretto

Sad that some people are thinking about their own food security and not about their whole community.
There are "survivalists" in USA and other places who have their nuclear bunkers and stockpiles of food and fuel.

But surely the more people who have 'prepared' in advance, the more there will be to go around amongst those who couldn't or wouldn't prepare, should a crisis happen, no?

It is a personal choice, and as far as I can see, bring prepared certainly won't make a potential disaster any worse for anyone else .

Casdon

Mrs Boring here, I disagree that there is not a lot we can do for ourselves, because there is. We can make provision to cope with the cold, we can buy suitable food, keep our car tanks full, etc. There’s nothing we can do to control the big picture, but we can control our own preparedness.

I am absolutely with you there, Casdon.

Sad that some people are thinking about their own food security and not about their whole community.
There are "survivalists" in USA and other places who have their nuclear bunkers and stockpiles of food and fuel.

The government is actively making contingency plans for all the different scenarios?
assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/687508b6cfc3756455bb69af/UK_Government_Resilience_Action_Plan_-_Accessible_PDF.pdf
Guidance is also being developed for households:
www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jul/14/britons-urged-small-steps-prepare-potential-national-crises

MaizieD
Thatcher sold it off didn’t she?

Don't know about that but I do know that North Sea Oil was mortgaged to the IMF for 30 years in return for bailing us out in the early 70s

Interesting to hear everyone's' views. Thank you pp for being kind to worried me! I'm not so much worried as wry - it is as it is, or might be, but I can't believe that those in power aren't making contingency plans for all those possible (probable?) disasters.
I imagine smaller communities, especially rural ones, would pull together as they seem to be the last bastion of what I think of as Englishness. Common sense, kindliness to those less fortunate, and "getting on with it".

There will be flooding in areas where the ground is now so parched that it is rock hard, because the rain will just roll off it.
Am hoping there will be a few persistent gentle showers so the ground will absorb it rather than several days of deluges.

MayBee70

In a few months we’ll probably be having floods. Am I right in thinking that it didn’t stop raining last winter ( I lose track). So we should be finding ways to store water better.

I hope you are right about rain on the way but we don't want flooding.
I am concerned as there is no rain in the forecast. The river here has run dry.
Rain has never let us down in this country before but I had a worrying thought that if we don't get much rain this coming winter oil and gas may be the lesser worry.

MaizieD

Casdon

25Avalon

Casdon, yes we do have oil in the North Sea but are not extracting it in the driveway for Net Zero and BP are pulling out so who will extract it should we decide to abandon net zero.

That’s not a this winter issue though Avalon, what is more relevant now is the world oil market, because oil in British waters is not ours in that respect.

I don't think that extracting the oil would do anything at all for our energy security; nor would it feed into cheaper energy prices for us.

As Casdon says, it isn't actually ours. It belongs to the international companies which extract it and it is sold on the world markets.

Thatcher sold it off didn’t she?

Casdon

25Avalon

Casdon, yes we do have oil in the North Sea but are not extracting it in the driveway for Net Zero and BP are pulling out so who will extract it should we decide to abandon net zero.

That’s not a this winter issue though Avalon, what is more relevant now is the world oil market, because oil in British waters is not ours in that respect.

I don't think that extracting the oil would do anything at all for our energy security; nor would it feed into cheaper energy prices for us.

As Casdon says, it isn't actually ours. It belongs to the international companies which extract it and it is sold on the world markets.

In a few months we’ll probably be having floods. Am I right in thinking that it didn’t stop raining last winter ( I lose track). So we should be finding ways to store water better.

25Avalon

Casdon, yes we do have oil in the North Sea but are not extracting it in the driveway for Net Zero and BP are pulling out so who will extract it should we decide to abandon net zero.

That’s not a this winter issue though Avalon, what is more relevant now is the world oil market, because oil in British waters is not ours in that respect.

Might do wonders for the obesity crisis too.

Marg75

The OP is genuinely worried, why would you make snide remarks like that? It is right, there's many things we should be worried about, no less a PM who wasn't even an MP who so far has no opposition at all because there's no Parliament sitting. I suppose someone will make a joke about that.

It's not at all snide

It's exercising a little humour in these ridiculous times.

Judgmental puritanism is the last thing anyone needs.

Witzend

One positive aspect of diminished supplies of food - perhaps the obscene levels of food waste in the U.K. will decrease?

(Yes, wasting food is one of my pet fury-makers.).

I’m with you here. People bin too much food. And it infuriates me that restaurants are forced to bin good food at the end of the day rather than giving it to those who need it, some sort of health and safety thing.
I use as much as humanly possible of the food we buy, was brought up this way.
Leftovers can be made into other hearty meals.
Is a sin throw away so much.

One positive aspect of diminished supplies of food - perhaps the obscene levels of food waste in the U.K. will decrease?

(Yes, wasting food is one of my pet fury-makers.).

veronica678

I hope those in power are giving some thought to what is going to happen this winter.
If the situation in the Gulf goes on, what sort of oil reserves do we have? Gas? When they run out, we certainly won't get all the power we need from renewables. That will affect everything that keeps the country going. Industry, hospitals, road, rail, air and shipping.
Water shortages which we have anyway and when the rains come we don't have the means to store it.
Food shortages - we simply don't grow enough to feed ourselves, and that's without the rubbish harvest we've had this year. If oil is short, imports will be affected. The whole world is being affected and countries will feed their own people first.
I think it's time to consider a cross party government of national emergency.
Or will we all kick the can down the road and then be surprised when all hell breaks loose?

Hmmmm......that's an impressively long list of potential catastrophes.

Well, abandon all hope etc, etc, etc.

Drive not driveway

Casdon, yes we do have oil in the North Sea but are not extracting it in the driveway for Net Zero and BP are pulling out so who will extract it should we decide to abandon net zero.

When I was a child we lived in a poor working class community but everyone pulled together when times got hard, was a matter of survival. If my old mum knew that an elderly neighbour was poorly or a family was going without she would spare what little food she had and take it to them. Other neighbours did the same. And in cold weather - and it was freezing near the Pennines - neighbours spared coal for those who could have died of hypothermia.
Those communities sadly don’t exist anymore, and families live far apart, so it is very much a case of looking after number one but maybe tough times will force us to be more community minded.
I certainly hope so.

Well we’ll all have to learn to make do with less if the OPs worries come to fruition.

I expect we all can if it comes to it. People in the past did.

MayBee70

The Conservative government got rid of our gas storage facilities I believe ( happy to be corrected…)…

Was it the government or was it the private energy companies?

I've searched this and the situation is confusing.

Centrica, one of the UK's largest energy companies closed its
Rough gas storage site in 2018, but restored it in 2022 in response to fears of gas shortages cause by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

It now seems that in 2025 Centrica planned to close it again in April of this year (2026) but it was granted an extension to April 2027 because of Trump's interference in Iran.

So it seems that supplies are available until then but according to this story, dated 27th July 2026, nothing is certain after that

www.gasworld.com/story/middle-east-conflict-sparks-closure-fears-for-uks-largest-gas-storage-site/2255410.article/

Make of it what you will. Perhaps others can sort it out better than I can...

My search results page:

duckduckgo.com/?q=rough+gas+storage+uk&t=chromentp&ia=web

This is not the only Rough gas storage site in the UK but is the biggest.