The Evening Post can reveal Lancashire County Council spent £35,944 on bottled water last year while NHS Central Lancashire spent nearly £18,000 even though a litre of tap water costs less than 1p.

It comes a few months after the NHS unveiled a plan urging trusts to only use tap water for meetings in a bid to cut its "carbon footprint".

Maggi Morris, director of public health for NHS Central Lancashire, said: "Tap water has no adverse effect on health. It is healthy and also environmentally friendlier than bottled water."

Today, public organisations said they would now review their use of bottled water after the figures were exposed by the Evening Post.

An adult drinking the recommended eight glasses of water a day would pay £1 a year if drinking from the tap, compared to £500 for bottled mineral water.

A spokesman for NHS Central Lancashire, the primary care trust covering Preston, Chorley, South Ribble and West Lancashire, said: "The primary care trust uses mains-fed water chiller units at all but one of its sites instead of bottled water.

"This has proved to be more cost-effective.

"Both types of water, chiller units and traditional bottles, are classified on our accounts as 'bottled water'.

"In the financial year 2008/09, NHS Central Lancashire spent £17,907.25 on what is classified as 'bottled water' for use in its clinics, offices and premises, of which there are more than 80. This works out on average at £223.84 per site."

A spokesman for Lancashire County Council, which is still trying to claw back £10m marooned in the failed Icelandic bank Landsbanki, said: "The county council is looking into its bottled water arrangements with a view to making changes."

For full story see Thursday's LEP.

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