Generations ago, families swam in the Little Ouse by the Nuns' Bridges in Thetford in the summer.

Now you can almost walk across its dry bed without getting your feet wet, as the flow falls to a trickle.

A level gauge at Abbey Heath shows the river is running at a level of 0.106m - below its usual lowest ebb of 0.13m.

Eastern Daily Press: Clare Higson and Sean Ready from the Thetford River Group.Clare Higson and Sean Ready from the Thetford River Group. (Image: Ella Wilkinson)

"This is climate change and it's going to get worse," said Clare Higson, who is part of the Thetford River Group which looks after the town's waterways. "This is the river crying out I need water."

Hotter, drier summers are forecast in what is already one of the driest regions in the country. East Anglia averages 630mm a year, almost half the national average of 1,163mm.

But help could soon be in the pipeline the Little Ouse.

"Coming around the corner is abstraction capping that will have a huge impact not only on the river but on the farming community," said Ms Higson

"We've got to have food but there's a real problem with the amount of water agriculture needs to keep the crops growing."

Eastern Daily Press: The NFU said irrigation helps produce more than 50pc of potatoes and 25pc of all vegetables and fruit grown nationally.The NFU said irrigation helps produce more than 50pc of potatoes and 25pc of all vegetables and fruit grown nationally. (Image: Archant Norfolk Photographic © 2011)

Farmers have little choice in a region where 40pc of our vegetables, including thirsty crops like potatoes, carrots, beetroot and salads are grown.

Ms Higson said: "The Environment Agency has classified the whole of the Eastern England as being in serious water stress.

"More than 60pc of England's abstraction licences for irrigation are located in the region.

Eastern Daily Press: The very dry Little Ouse River at Nuns' Bridges, Thetford.The very dry Little Ouse River at Nuns' Bridges, Thetford. (Image: Denise Bradley/Archant 2022)

"Current regional daily use per person is 146 litres a day and the aim is reduce it by behavioural change to 110 litres each per day."

Water that we use for drinking, flushing the loo, cleaning our teeth and bathing accounts for half of all abstraction according to the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Farmers help make up les than a tenth according to its latest abstraction statistics report.

Eastern Daily Press: Work under way on one of the northern sections of the new pipelineWork under way on one of the northern sections of the new pipeline (Image: TIM GEORGE PHOTOGRAPHER)

Anglian Water said: "Across our 8 sources in the Thetford area, Anglian Water is currently licenced to abstract 7,800 million litres a year. Capping these licences will remove approximately 2,000 million litres (20pc) of abstractable water."

Work is starting on a new pipeline from Lincolnshire to Suffolk, which will help bolster supplies.

Our region's rivers have an outspoken friend in Feargal Sharkey, singer with 70s band the The Undertones, who lives near the Rover Lea in Hertfordshire and is a fierce critic of environmental policies and failure to enforce legislation to protect them.