Water customers praised for putting down hosepipes

Yorkshire Water said it had received more than 100 reports of people flouting its hosepipe ban, as it thanked users for saving millions of litres over the weekend.

The ban, which is expected to last until winter, was introduced by Yorkshire Water on Friday, with more than 5m householders barred from using hosepipes for activities such as watering the garden, washing the car or filling a paddling pool.

The company praised its customers after water usage dropped by about 26m gallons (100m litres) in just two days.

Dave Kaye, director of water at Yorkshire Water, said: "We'd like to thank customers who have put down the hosepipes over what was an extremely hot weekend."

It was the first regional ban in the UK this year and comes after months of extremely hot and dry weather across England.

Yorkshire Water said the region had experienced its driest and warmest spring on record, with only 6in (15cm) of rainfall between February and June - less than half of what would be expected in an average year.

Mr Kaye said the company understood hosepipe restrictions were "frustrating" and wanted to thank customers for "putting the hosepipes away".

He said weekend usage had "decreased significantly compared to the previous heatwave" and thanked customers for using water "wisely" and continuing to report leaks.

He added: "We're all in this together - the vast majority of our colleagues are customers too - and we're all doing our bit at home and in the workplace to save water."

Yorkshire Water reminded customers it had the "power to enforce the restrictions and we have set up a process to deal with those breaching it".

The company said: "We would prefer not to have to use this and would hope customers would work with us and respect the restrictions, recognising it's been put in place to protect essential supplies."

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