A VEGBOX firm has applied for take 12 million litres of water out of Budworth Mere every summer to irrigate its vegetables.
Groobox, which farms around 92 acres across Great Budworth, High Legh, and Tarporley, has applied for a water abstraction licence from the Environment Agency.
The licence, if granted, would allow the business to take out up to 98,000 litres a day from the adjacent mere between May 1 and August 31, up to a total of 12 million litres in any one year.
According to the application, the water would be used for direct irrigation of brassicas, potatoes, carrots, beetroot, and salad lettuce.
David Fryer, who owns the business, supplies veg boxes across five counties as well as to his own popular field-to-fork restaurant.
David spoke to the Guardian in August about how the prolonged dry weather was wiping out whole plantings of even drought resistant crops at Groobarbs.
"I worked on farms in Australia 30 years ago, and it's just like that,” he said.
"We just about scraped through last year and thought we wouldn't have to deal with another summer like this for a while, but this one is actually much worse.”
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