Londoners could face water limits due to dry weather

[LONDON] Hot, dry weather in London and surrounding areas means water usage might have to be restricted for Thames Water’s 16 million customers, according to the supplier.

The UK has already had an unusually warm start to the summer with temperatures set to climb again in the coming days. Met Office forecasts see London reaching 32 degrees Centigrade by Friday. 

“Unless the situation changes significantly, we will need to put usage restrictions, including a hosepipe ban, in place to ensure taps keep running for customers’ essential use,” a spokesperson for Thames Water said.

The UK is experiencing drier and hotter periods with hosepipe bans becoming more common, as global warming drives up temperatures and impacts rainfall patterns across the country. Companies are investing in more reservoirs as well as fixing leaks in their network where significant amounts of water is lost. Water usage has spiked for some of Thames Water’s customers with demand in Swindon and Oxfordshire surpassing levels seen during the 2022 drought at the end of June this year.

This comes as the first hosepipe ban this year was announced on Tuesday (Jul 8) by Yorskhire Water, which operates in the northeast of the UK, telling customers that watering gardens, cleaning cars and filling up pools will be forbidden. The company says reservoir levels have not increased since January following the driest spring on record.

Last month the Environment Agency declared a drought in the area after it received no rain for 22 days in May. That left Yorkshire’s reservoirs at 63 per cent at the end of May compared with 94 per cent in 2024.

“Despite some heavy downpours, there has not been enough rain to compensate for the dry weather over the longer term,” said Jess Neumann, associate professor of hydrology, University of Reading. In May, UK environment authorities urged water companies to take more steps to shore up supplies amid England’s driest spring since 1893. BLOOMBERG