Anglian Water rules out hosepipe ban

Anglian Water has confirmed it will not be implementing a hosepipe ban this year, following record rainfall.

The company has stated that even if the heatwave predictions for this summer prove to be true, no ban on hosepipe usage will be brought in for its region in the East of England.

Anglian explained that the last 18 months have been the wettest on record and that with 10 named storms since last autumn, both groundwater and reservoir levels are in a “tip-top position for the year ahead”. Reservoirs across the region, it added, are over 90% full on average.

Ian Rule, director of water at Anglian, said: “It’s clear from this winter that our climate is going to continue to change at an alarming rate meaning periods of drought and flood are going to become more common place. While we always welcome a wet winter to replenish our supplies this winter has been extreme but it does mean we’re in good shape heading into this summer.

“We’ve known that the East is likely to see the impacts of the climate emergency more keenly than anywhere else in the UK, and building resilience to climate change, as well as preparing for 720,000 new residents to move to our region, has been at the heart of our long-term planning since the 1990s.

“In fact it is one of the reasons – alongside driving down leakage to industry leading low levels – why we didn’t need to implement a hosepipe ban, unlike other parts of the UK, in the last long hot summer.”

As part of its £9 billion business plan Anglian is expanding a strategic pipeline network and is also making preparations for two new reservoirs in its region.

The pipeline will include hundreds of kilometers of large diameter water mains which will bring water from the wettest areas in Lincolnshire to the driest areas in the south and east of Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex.

“It will allow water to be moved around in a more agile way to wherever it is needed most. Once complete, the new network will be longer than the M1,” Anglian said.

Plans are also being made towards developing two new reservoirs, one in South Lincolnshire and another in the Fens which, by the end of next decade, will supply water to three quarters of a million homes.

Despite Anglian’s decision not to implement a ban, warnings emerged over the weekend that bans may be necessary.

Jo Parker, a chartered civil engineer who has worked in the utility industry for 30 years, was quoted in The Guardian as saying that even after record rainfall there could still be hosepipe bans in the event of a record hot summer.

“The amount of untreated water storage in this country is far lower than we need as there have been no reservoirs built for the last 30 years,” she said.

Furthermore, speaking at the recent annual Waterwise conference Environment Agency chair Alan Lovell advocated for more hosepipe bans to raise public awareness of water consumption.

He said that although water companies don’t like to impose temporary restrictions, he wants to see them used more as one of the few ways consumers see “the fragility of the system” and become conscious of their usage.