DROUGHT OF ORDER
Soggy Brits warned of HOSEPIPE BAN
MILLIONS of baffled Brits soaked through by torrential downpours were warned to prepare for a hosepipe ban after a water company claimed
the country was in drought. In a letter to its customers, Affinity Water said that there had been much less rain than normal over the past three years.
Affinity supplies more than 3.6million people in Bedfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Surrey, London and the Folkestone and Dover areas of Kent.
Pauline Walsh, the firm’s boss, said: “We may need to introduce water restrictions (also known as a hosepipe ban) in spring 2020.
“We rely on rain, especially in winter, to supply your water. The rain this week is not enough to make up for three years of dry weather.
Showers
“There’s lots we’re doing but you can help too.”
The company gave advice such as reducing showers by a minute and using a water butt for gardening.
The letter follows figures from the Consumer Council for Water that show Affinity has failed its leakage target for a second successive year.
Yesterday’s rain made roads hazardous while some rail routes were also hit.
And experts have warned conditions will only get worse for the next few weeks.
Bookies Coral now makes this month odds-on at 1-2 to be the wettest September since records began.
ONLY in Britain could this happen.
Millions of us are struggling to get to work and back because chronic floods have crippled our transport infrastructure.
Bookies reckon this will be the wettest September we’ve ever had.
But when we eventually come home and walk through the front door there is a letter from the water company telling us we’re in the grips of a drought.
You couldn’t make it up.
But you don’t have to because it’s there in black and white – along with a warning to expect a hosepipe ban next spring.
Naturally, Affinity Water knows more about the supply issues with its own company than the rest of us.
And clearly the so-called drought is a result of several months of dry weather before this recent deluge.
But nevertheless it seems a bit premature to make this claim now.
Why not wait until we’ve had the inevitable floods this autumn and winter before making that decision?