This week we moved the South East Water area to Red water status, this means we’re asking you to pause hosepipe use and only use water for essential purposes: drinking, cooking and hygiene.
This is voluntary, but we really need your help because we’re seeing continued high demand.

Yes, it’s been a warmer week, which continues into this weekend, and we expect demand to rise. However, these kinds of levels put extreme pressure on the network.

On Thursday we experienced the second highest demand of this year, 673 million litres, which is 85 million more than average for July.

So we’re reminding everyone of our request to pause hosepipe use, to help keep all of your taps flowing at this time.

We understand how frustrating a request like this is and have seen and heard from many of you. So we’re answering a few of the common concerns.

1. I pay for it, so I’ll use it.

We understand that you’ll want to use more water when it’s hot, however, water is different to most other things that you just buy more of when you want.

Water is a limited resource. The planet has the same amount of water now compared to when dinosaurs roamed earth and less than 1 per cent of the world’s water is fresh and accessible for our use.

The water you're using now, would have been in the environment only a few hours ago. In that time we’ve taken it from there, treated it, stored it and pumped it out to your taps.

It's really challenging to keep up with demand when it is this hot. This is why we’re asking for your help to pause hosepipe use and keep everyone's taps flowing at home for drinking, cooking and hygiene.

2. Fix your own leaks first.

We know we have more work to do to bring leakage down.

We are making progress and have repaired more leaks in the last year (21,000 on our network and 6,000 customer-side leaks), which is around 10 per cent more than the year before.

We also have more staff than ever, finding and fixing leaks, increasing our dedicated team by over 11 per cent in the last year.

We’re also investing tens of millions on this every year, £63 million to be exact.

Right now though, we can’t do it alone. We need to work together to bring demand down to manageable levels.

3. We’ve only had a few hot weeks, you should be able to supply water.

This year has broken records. May saw the hottest day on record for the month.

June saw a new UK temperature record and our region recorded the highest average minimum temperature of anywhere in the UK too.

July has seen a third month of temperatures in the UK above 35 degrees, setting a new record.

We do hold our hands up that we need to do more, so that we are more resilient to these new weather records. That’s why we’re focused on delivering our long-term business plan, the most ambitious ever produced, with £2.1 billion being invested over five years to 2030.

We are three months into year two of the five year plan, building the much needed infrastructure. It’s not all in place yet, as that will take more time.

This is why we’ve asked for your help to pause hosepipe use and only use water for essential purposes right now. When we work together to lower demand to more manageable levels, it protects your water supply while we’re in this challenging in-between period.

4. You haven’t invested enough and now expect me to make the sacrifice.

Investment in your water supply happens in five year cycles. We’re in year two of the current five year cycle.

In the last cycle 2020 to 2025 (ended in March 2025) we invested every penny we were allowed to by our regulator Ofwat, and even put in an extra £100 million more because we needed more investment.

For the current cycle (April 2025 to March 2030) we’re investing £2.1 billion, the most amount of money in any cycle ever. Through this, we’re in the process of building the infrastructure to make us more resilient.

We are sincerely sorry that we’re asking you to pause using your hosepipe during summer. It’s not a decision we’ve taken lightly.

Right now demand is continually high and we do not want to see you go without water. So this request is one action, alongside many others we’re doing to keep taps flowing.

5. Why are you blaming customers for using water?

We’re very sorry if anything we’ve said has felt like blame, that’s not our intention. We want to be factual with you and explain the situation and context as best we can.

Of course, we understand that demand for water will rise in hot weather. We’ve seen more weather records broken in the last three months and it’s the continual high temperatures that is causing the pressure on the network.

We are in the process of making things more resilient, replacing pipes, connecting up our network, increasing storage and water into supply. While we’re in this in-between period, when the temperature rises like this, we may struggle to keep taps flowing for everyone if demand remains as high as it is, day after day.

That’s why we’re asking you to pause hosepipe use, as it’s one way to help reduce the pressure. So please help us to help you.


Thank you for saving water at this time

We want to say a huge thank you to everyone who has been using water wisely. We really appreciate your ongoing efforts.