A senior planner has questioned Southern Water's support for major house-building in West Sussex as a water crisis looms.

Southern Water, based in Worthing, said it had not ruled out introducing standpipes if winter rainfall doesn't replenish supplies.

Councillor John Livermore, cabinet member for planning on Worthing Borough Council, said: "It doesn't bear thinking about. I would hate to see standpipes in the streets. It would make us a Third World country. This would be a disaster."

The Environment Agency said the area, already the subject of a hosepipe ban, was facing its worst drought for more than 70 years.

A Southern Water spokeswoman said: "We are not ruling out the possibility of standpipes in the summer. The last time they were considered was 1976, when we were using 40 litres a day less than we are now."

Coun Livermore said he couldn't understand why Southern Water was not speaking out against the thousands of new homes earmarked for the county in the next decade when it was already imposing restrictions on existing households.

The Government's house-building target included around 875 new properties on countryside at West Durrington, Worthing. The Environment Agency warned that the chalk aquifers serving Worthing were already below capacity.

Lucy Harding, spokeswoman for the Agency, said the underground reservoir at Broadwater Elms was 43 per cent full, while another, at Rogers Farm, Findon, was 61 per cent full.

She said: "We need around 130 per cent of the usual rainfall between now and March to return levels to near average. The concern is that groundwater will not replenish and we could see a serious drought next summer."

Coun Livermore said: "Southern Water is consulted on every planning application. They say there is no problem. But there must be a problem, or we wouldn't have a hosepipe ban. It doesn't make sense. I cannot see how they can say there is plenty of water when there isn't. We have had no rain. We should have a network of pipes to bring water from Cumbria, which would be common sense."

He believed Southern Water was agreeing to vast new housing estates to stop Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott "jumping up and down".

James Appleton, the council's assistant director of planning, said: "Southern Water feels it can guarantee a water supply to Worthing and West Durrington. How that squares with hosepipe bans is something Southern Water needs to explain."