Wessex Water Update – Hosepipe Ban Introduced

Wessex Water has announced a hosepipe ban after months of unprecedented dry weather, heatwaves and a continued lack of rain forecast, which has led to sustained high demand for water.

They have taken this decision after more than 40 days of demand for water remaining at record-breaking levels and the region formally declared as being in drought.  They need to protect our water resources for both their customers and the environment.

It is the first time they have introduced a ban in half a century, since the famous drought of 1976.

From Tuesday 18 August at 00:01hrs, their 1.4 million customers – in areas including Bath, and parts of Somerset, Dorset and Wiltshire – must not use a hosepipe for activities such as watering gardens, washing cars, patios, paths and driveways, cleaning windows or filling swimming and paddling pools.

Wessex Water has worked hard to avoid these restrictions, and the decision comes after a 60% reduction in leakage in the past 30 years and a five-year £230 million investment in our water supply grid which came into use in 2018.

Repair teams have been fixing more leaks than ever this summer across the supply area, increasing repairs by more than a third in the last month alone.

But the prolonged and extreme dry weather has meant demand across our region has consistently remained at more than 400 million litres per day, 30 per cent above average for this time of year and the equivalent of almost half a million hosepipes running for a full hour every day.

For information about the hosepipe ban please visit Wessex Water’s website.