Flowerbeds and hanging baskets are banned, but patios are legitimate. The driveway is allowed, although the car parked there is off limits. And commercial vehicles can still be cleaned, except for taxis, which count as private motorcars.
Confused? Millions of home-owners in the United Kingdom were recently, as sweeping hosepipe bans came into force across London and south-east England in an attempt to tackle one of the worst droughts on record.
About 10-million customers face £1 000 fines if they use a hosepipe to wash their cars or water the garden. Other companies across the region had already introduced similar restrictions, which are expected to last all season. The UK supermarket chain Tesco says sales of watering cans are up 68%.
Unions reacted angrily to the ban imposed by Thames Water and Three Valleys, arguing that water companies are not doing enough to plug about 3,6-billion litres of leaks a day.
But Thames Water insisted the move was necessary and blamed lawmakers for the confusion. A spokesperson said: ”The particular legislation is not ideal but it’s all that’s open to us.”
She said the hosepipe and sprinkler ban was invoked under the 1991 Water Resources Act, which explicitly prohibits their use only for watering gardens and washing private vehicles. Dozens of other uses of hosepipes are still allowed, from filling hot tubs to washing the patio.
”That’s the legislation and that’s what we have to comply with. You can still use a hosepipe to hose down your patio or a driveway,” she said.
The exact definition of a patio remains untested in court, she admitted. ”We tend to find that people comply and on the whole they do respect the ban. Only after all attempts at reasoning have failed will we go down the road of prosecution.”
Thames Water hopes the ban will cut demand by 4%. It supplies 2,8-billion litres a day, 64% of which goes to domestic customers. The restrictions are the first in the region for 15 years and follow more than a year of below-average rainfall. Last year was the third-driest since records began in 1897.
The spokesperson added: ”The recent rain we’ve had has come on the heels of a 16-month drought. It’s welcome but it’s not made much of a difference.”
Winter rain usually soaks through the soil to top up underground water flowing into rivers and boreholes. But much of spring and summer rainfall evaporates or is taken up by plants.
More severe restrictions could be imposed if the situation does not improve. Water companies could ask the government for a drought order, which would extend the domestic hosepipe ban to all non-essential uses of water. Emergency conditions could see supplies turned off and householders would be forced to draw water from tankers in the street.
Friends of the Earth said that short-term restrictions were better than increasing dependence on rivers, which can drain nearby wetlands and damage ecosystems. ”We wouldn’t like to see short-term shortages of water cause long-term damage to wildlife,” said Roger Higman, one of its campaigners. Ofwat, the water industry watchdog, described the bans as ”sensible and prudent”.
But Gary Smith, national water industry officer for the GMB union, said Thames Water’s closure of four reservoirs around London in the mid-1990s had made the situation worse. ”If you close reservoirs, however small they are, that surely has an impact on your ability to store and subsequently supply water. Clearly in time of shortage they take on an important role.”
Thames Water said the reservoirs held relatively small amounts of water and were closed when a new distribution system called the ring main made them obsolete. Roland Grzybek, an independent water engineer with consultants Halcrow, said: ”If the reservoirs were still open then they’d be in a marginally better situation, but we’d almost certainly still have to have a hosepipe ban.” Thames Water said it was spending £500 000 a day fixing holes in its leaky Victorian pipe network.
David Gilchrist, of the Horticultural Trades Association, said it was important that people realised they could still use watering cans to water their gardens. He said: ”We know it is important to save water, but as an industry we are angry that we are forced to pick up the tab for a hosepipe ban that disproportionately hits the gardening industry. Landscapers, garden centres and horticulturists face millions of pounds in lost sales, while water companies escape fines even when they fail to achieve agreed water wastage reductions.”
The Royal Horticultural Society said gardeners should keep up with the weeding — ”they take water that other plants could have” — and could switch to plants and vegetables that need little water, such as lavender, petunias, beetroot and sweetcorn. — Â