The Environment Agency has been warned that it must be ready to mount fish rescue operations as rivers in the south of England shrink and fish become trapped and stranded.

At the 'Drought Summit' held today in London, Mark Owen of the Angling Trust (AT) said: "Whilst gardeners will moan about the prospect of hosepipe bans it is the angling clubs and our fisheries that will be bearing the brunt of this appalling drought."

Martin Salter, the AT's newly appointed National Campaigns Co-ordinator, visited the River Kennet at West Overton in Wiltshire this morning (see photo, above) where he highlighted the desperate plight of England's chalkstrems to reporters from Sky News and the BBC. Mr Salter said that anglers expected politicians to implement long term solutions to improve storage and reduce the need for abstractions from already dangerously low rivers. The Kennet Valley in particular has experienced drastically low rainfull for the last 18 months with less rain than in 1976. Anglers and environmentalists in the area have long been critical of Thames Water's abstraction from Axford to supply Swindon.