Southern Water has imposed a temporary use ban across Hampshire and the Isle of Wight following prolonged dry weather.
From 5 August, the area will be subject to the first hosepipe ban since 2012, which will affect around 1.5 million customers.
The water company has also applied to the Environment Agency (EA) for a drought permit on the River Test chalk stream, which the company is working to progressively reduce abstraction from.
Since 2019 Southern’s licence was changed to cut the volume of water taken from the chalk stream by 40% to safeguard the waterway and ecosystems reliant on it. The company was tasked with finding alternative water source supplies and began investing £800 million to do so. Several schemes are progressing as part of RAPID (the Regulators Alliance for Progressing Infrastructure Development) including transfers from the Havant Thicket Reservoir.
The National Drought Group met this week as the country moved to “prolonged dry status” but the EA said nowhere in England is currently in drought status.
July has seen record temperatures across the UK and rainfall has been low over the past eight months leaving river flows approximately 25% what they should be for the time of year.
At present, reservoir levels in Southern’s region are below average. Its four main reservoirs are currently at 67% at Bewl in Kent, 54% at Darwell, 55% in Powdermill both in East Sussex, 61% at Weir Wood in north Sussex.
Customers in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight have been asked to limit water consumption by avoiding non-essential activities and using a watering can instead of a hosepipe in the garden until rainfall returns river flow levels to normal. Most of Southern’s region remains without restrictions.
The company has applied for drought permits from the EA in the past three years but not been required to use them. Since its abstraction licences were changed, under the terms of the licence, the company must stop abstraction when water flow levels dip below 355 million litres per day. The drought permit requested would set a lower flow limit for abstraction of 265 million litres a day.
The company anticipates an ongoing reliance on drought permits as it works to add novel resources to its supply network including from neighbouring Portsmouth Water, which has been supplying 15 million litres daily to Hampshire since 2019.