Thames Water has announced a hosepipe ban as a record dry spring and summer has severely reduced water supplies.
Households in Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Wiltshire will be banned from using hosepipes to wash cars or water gardens from Tuesday 22 July.
The ban will affect all OX, GL and SN postcodes, as well as RG4, RG8 and RG9.
The recent hot weather has caused a large surge in demand as people water their gardens and keep cool in the heatwave.
Nevil Muncaster, strategic water resources director at Thames Water, said he did not “anticipate the situation will improve any time soon”, adding: “We have to take action now.”
He said: “This has been a challenging spring and summer with big spikes in customer demand during hot dry days and very little rainfall to replenish local supplies in the Thames Valley.”
Gary Carter of the trade union GMB said the ban was “disgraceful”. He said: “Thames Water lost 200bn litres of water through leaks last year. That’s 570m litres wasted every single day – the worst in the country.
“GMB members at Thames are working hard and doing the best they can, but they’ve had their hands tied behind their backs by crumbling infrastructure and non-existent investment. For Thames Water to now impose a hosepipe ban while bills rocket is disgraceful.”
Hosepipe bans could last for months as aquifers recharge and reservoirs refill. Yorkshire Water has said its ban, which was announced last week, could be in place until winter.
The government’s national drought group is meeting on Monday as farmers, water companies and experts coordinate their response to the extreme lack of rainfall.
This comes after the Guardian revealed England’s reservoirs are at their lowest levels for a decade.
In June, reservoirs across the country were 76% full, which is below the level at the same point during the severe drought year of 2022, when they were at 77% capacity.
Levels have continued to drop dramatically as the hot weather has increased demand for water and there has been very little rain to refill reservoirs.
Yorkshire Water’s hosepipe ban was introduced after the region recorded its driest spring in 132 years. South East Water also announced a hosepipe ban for more than 1 million people in Kent and Sussex on Friday.
The prolonged dry spring and summer coupled with hot weather, which increases consumer water use, has caused reservoir levels in some areas of the country to fall significantly.
Severn Trent’s reservoir levels have dropped from 83.5% on 23 May to 71.1% on 30 June. United Utilities’ reservoir levels are at 65%; at the same point last year they were at 84.5%.
Yorkshire’s reservoirs are at 55.8%, down more than a quarter on the normal level for this time of year.
Last year the government and water companies announced proposals to build nine new reservoirs by 2050. No major reservoirs have been completed in England since 1992, shortly after the water sector was privatised.
