No hosepipe ban ‘for time being’
All areas: Company asks people to use water wisely
A company supplying water in Maidenhead has said it is not planning to introduce a hosepipe ban ‘for the time being’.
South East Water said its position remains unchanged after neighbouring Thames Water decided to introduce a hosepipe ban in ‘the coming weeks’ as the dry weather continues to put pressure on water supplies.
Thames Water, which supplies water to parts of Berkshire including Slough and areas surrounding Reading, said the timing of the ban was not yet confirmed.
On Thursday, August 4, Thames Water said water would be transferred to Berkshire from its aquifer recharge system in London – in order to maintain its reservoir levels better and avoid a hosepipe ban.
This followed news of temporary hosepipe bans being rolled out in other parts of the country.
On Tuesday, the company gave an update urging people to use water ‘wisely’ and was still resisting introducing a hosepipe ban.
It said its reservoirs had fallen below average due to the last nine out of 11 months having been drier than usual.
Despite these efforts, yesterday (Wednesday), the
company said it is planning to introduce a hosepipe ban after all – also called a Temporary Use Ban [TUB].
A Thames Water spokesperson said: “Given the long term forecast of dry weather and another forecast of very hot temperatures coming this week we are planning to announce a temporary use ban in the coming weeks.
“We have written to the Environment Agency to update them on our approach and informed Ofwat.”
The spokesperson said the timing is not confirmed due to ‘a number of operational and legal procedural requirements.’
“But we will be updating our customers, partners, regulators and stakeholders at the earliest time to ensure a coordinated approach,” said the spokesperson.
“In the meantime we continue to urge our customers to only use what they need for their essential use.”
On Wednesday, August 3 South East Water announced a hosepipe ban from August 12 on its customers in Kent and Sussex – but such a thing for Berkshire is not yet on the cards, it says. On Tuesday, the company said this is ‘still our current position.’
The service says demands on its service has ‘increased considerably’ but is continuing to ask customers to voluntarily restrict their own water consumption for the time being.
Lee Dance, head of water resources at South East Water, said: “Whilst demand in our supply areas in Surrey, Berkshire and Hampshire has also increased considerably, we have not suffered from the same water supply issues as experienced in Kent and Sussex.
“For the time being, we are in a position that we can continue to ask our customers to apply voluntary restraint on the amount of water they use at home.
“We are continuing to monitor the situation and will advise customers if circumstances change.
“The restrictions in Kent and Sussex will continue until we are confident that the demand for water has reduced back to manageable levels. We will keep the position under constant review.
“This really is just a short temporary measure to help us in these very unusual circumstances.”