The director of Waterwise UK did say Ofwat has worked ‘well until now’ but it needed to be replaced with a more modern organisation.
He said: “Now we need a completely different model and to start to think about offering incentives for things like rainwater harvesting.
“There’s a long term issue and now’s the time to deal with it.”
Mr Tompkins also attacked the government for not doing enough to create green jobs and the lack of legislation surrounding greywater.
He said: “Where are the green jobs? There are no green jobs and no training academies for people who want to learn the skills needed for a green economy.
“Greywater needs more legislation as I don’t want to see people poisoning themselves.”
Mr Tompkins also reminded his audience of the fact that despite perceptions of the UK as a wet country we had less rainfall then ‘most European countries’.
And some part of the south east were ‘semi-arid’ with London having as much ‘rainfall per year as Jerusalem.’