A total of 8000 litres worth of ice will be left to melt outside a cathedral as a warning of water wastage.

The installation, called ‘The Cold Hard Truth’ will be a large block of ice representing the amount of water that the average family of four uses in two weeks.

It will be displayed in front of St Albans Cathedral during St Albans Sustainability Festival on Friday and, depending on weather, will take around four days to melt.

Jake Rigg, Director of Communications, Communities and Corporate Affairs at Affinity Water said: “We must act now to avert a crisis. The most effective way of doing this is by introducing a mandatory water efficiency labelling scheme as without this we will have a crisis on our hands.”

He went on to add: “I’m not willing to play Russian roulette with our children’s future. That is why we have launched this campaign.”

The head of the Environment Agency, Sir James Bevan, recently warned that England could run out of water in just 25 years, he said: “Around 25 years from now, where those [demand and supply] lines cross is known by some as the ‘jaws of death’ – the point at which we will not have enough water to supply our needs, unless we take action to change things.”