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A water firm boss has blamed folks working from residence for a brand new hosepipe ban.
South East Water will impose the primary hosepipe ban of the summer time from Monday, affecting greater than two million properties and companies throughout Kent and Sussex.
Its chief government, David Hinton, stated in a letter to prospects that post-pandemic working from residence was a “key issue” behind the ban, because it has “elevated consuming water demand”.
He wrote: “Over the previous three years the best way through which consuming water is getting used throughout the southeast has modified significantly.
“The rise of working from residence has elevated consuming water demand in commuter cities by round 20% over a really brief interval, testing our present infrastructure.”
Mr Hinton additionally blamed low rainfall since April for leaving water butts empty, in addition to pointing to a latest spell of scorching climate which he claims led to a spike in demand for consuming water.
“Our reservoir and aquifer shares of uncooked water, important to our water provide however not prepared for use, are in a superb place. Nevertheless, demand for handled mains water, which takes time to course of and ship, was larger than we might meet,” he stated.
“Over the previous week we’ve got wanted to seek out water to provide the equal of an extra 4 cities the scale of Maidstone or Eastbourne daily.”
Greg Clark, the Conservative MP for Tunbridge Wells, instructed The Instances: “Their solely job is to ship consuming water.
“However in my constituency, they’ve run out of water twice in six months – as soon as simply earlier than Christmas once we had a chilly snap, and now after a small and unexceptional heatwave.
“What they’re describing by way of folks working for house is certainly not particular to this space.
“There was for a while an inclination for folks to work extra from residence. A water firm ought to be capable to predict and accommodate for this.”
A spokeswoman for the water regulator Ofwat stated: “South East Water should do higher to foretell and handle operational points, assist prospects, and have interaction with them on what is occurring and why.
“Clients will probably be asking why, for the second time in six months, their water firm is being caught out by the climate.”
South East Water’s Head of Service Administration, Steve Andrews, defended the ban, saying it was “launched to make sure that we are able to ship consuming water to all our prospects persistently”.
He added: “We need to thank our prospects for being conscious of their water use and remind them to proceed to make use of water correctly over the approaching weekend.”
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