If you had to name one item of which the south west of England seems in general to have plenty, I guess that many of us would say: water.

Our landscape tends to remain green right through the summer months when many continental landscapes are brown and parched. Our gardens remain flowery in a quite wonderful way from early spring to late autumn. And, on the negative side of the balance sheet, we are all used to rainy days.

Even by comparison with the south east, the south west is very definitely wet.

But there has been for many years a strange paradox in our country – namely, that a nation known for rain has all too frequently experienced drought.

The reason for this strange phenomenon is that the large accumulation of water in the south west and north of the country has not generally been available in sufficient quantities to people in the south east during years when the south easterly water tables are low.

This, of course, is nothing new. For decades, people talked about the desirability of constructing a water grid, similar to the national grid that distributes electricity and gas around the country.

But, for decade after decade, nothing really happened to address the issue.

A few years ago, I came to the conclusion that we really did need to find some more practical and less expensive way of solving this problem.

And, I am delighted to say that we now seem to be making some real progress in this direction.

Increasingly, following some sensible changes in the regulation of the water industry, the water companies have been investing in systems that enable them to trade water with one another – and there is now a much better prospect that water will cascade from the parts of the country where it is in plentiful supply to the parts that need it most. So we, in the western part of Dorset are likely, increasingly, to become a water exporter.