South East Water has banned the use of hosepipes for its customers in Sussex, meaning they cannot be used for watering gardens, washing cars or windows or filling paddling pools.
It said a “record-breaking demand for drinking water”, combined with multiple heatwaves and a prolonged dry period, has left the water company with “no choice”.
Low levels of water have exceeded the limits in the company’s drought plan and “will soon start to impact the environment”.
Met Office reports have indicated that this spring was the driest since 1893, with conditions set to persist.
The ban covers South East Water customers in Sussex and Kent, impacting around 1.4 million people.
According to South East Water, demand reached 680 million litres on June 30 – 105 million litres a day more than the summer average.
David Hinton, chief executive officer of South East Water, said: “Providing the public water supply during this prolonged period of hot and dry weather continues to be challenging.
“Water supply resources have been significantly stretched, but are pleased that so far we have been able to largely meet customer demands, through balancing our network and putting our newly arrived tanker fleet into operation straight away.
“However, we know that continued demand at this level presents a serious concern to ensure that we can protect the environment and keep everyone supplied.
“Despite asking for customers’ help to use water for essential uses only, regrettably we’ve now been left with no choice but to introduce this temporary use ban restriction to protect customers’ supplies and the environment across Kent and Sussex.
“We continue to monitor the long term weather forecast, and will review this decision on a regular basis.
“Restricting the use of hosepipes and sprinklers to make sure we have enough water for our customers’ essential use will ensure we can serve our vulnerable customers and to protect the local environment.
“We are very aware that climate change and other factors are increasing the frequency of these events. Hosepipe restrictions are an integral part of our drought mitigation in the UK and are designed to protect supplies and the environment.
“I would like to thank everyone who has already taken steps to try and reduce their overall water use but despite this, demand still remains very high and the forecast suggests a dry summer is highly likely which is why we have taken this decision to bring in temporary use restrictions.”
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