Southern Water has confirmed that a hosepipe ban will be coming into force across the Isle of Wight next Friday (5th August) – with a £1,000 fine for anyone who breaches the restrictions.
For the first time in 10 years, Islanders will be banned from doing a number of day-to-day activities such as watering the garden with a hosepipe, washing the car or cleaning the windows. It is unknown how long the ban will last.
The ban – known as a Temporary Use Ban (TUB) – is being made in a bid to reduce water usage in the region as Southern Water urgently need to reduce the demand on the River Test and River Itchen. Island Echo reported on the threat of a hosepipe ban last Saturday.
For the past 8 months, the South had seen very little in the way of rainfall. In fact, it is one of the driest years in the past 131 years. As a result, river flows are now approximately 25% lower than they should be at this time of year.
As of 5th August 2022, Isle of Wight households will be prevented from doing the following:
- Watering the garden or plants using a hosepipe
- Cleaning a private motor vehicle or leisure boat using a hosepipe
- Filling or maintaining a domestic swimming or paddling pool
- Drawing water, using a hosepipe, for domestic recreational use
- Filling or maintaining a domestic pond using a hosepipe
- Filling or maintaining an ornamental fountain
- Cleaning walls, windows, paths, patios or artificial outdoor surfaces at domestic premises using a hosepipe
Anyone caught using a hosepipe during the TUB period is liable for prosecution through the criminal courts under Section 36 of the Flood and Water Management Act 2010. TUB restrictions will remain in place until the region has had enough rain and the river flows are back to a normal level.
There are a number of exceptions to the rules, including if you are a blue badge holder. The exceptions typically permit commercial activity, such as watering plants for sale or running a car wash.
You can still fill a paddling pool and water plants in the garden if doing so from a container – i.e. a watering can – that is filled directly from the tap. You can also use a hosepipe if you’re using an approved drip or trickle irrigation system fitted with a pressure-reducing valve (PRV) and timer.
If you have recently laid a new lawn you can apply to Southern Water to water the new turf for a period of 28 days.
Cue a rush in people filling water butts, washing cars, jetwashing patios, etc, before the ban comes into force.
Why would you fill a water but? You can still fill your watering can from the tap..
Might be some distance from the tap or may have a pump attached. Using a hose from a butt is legal.
Not enough water, stop building more houses
there is plenty of water just the southern water does not invest in infrastructure they just invest in the shareholders ,Thermal distillation involves heat: Boiling water turns it into vapor—leaving the salt behind—that is collected and condensed back into water by cooling it down. The most common type of membrane separation is called reverse osmosis. Seawater is forced through a semipermeable membrane that separates salt from water.
How much water holding capacity has been lost on the Island whilst still wanting to build more and more houses?
Cowes reservoir springs to mind.
Yep – another 150 homes there! Typical backward “let’s build anywhere” planning,
Three reservoirs lost over the years in Cowes, Main one adjacent to Love Lane, by the Medical Centre and I know a long time back, Moorgreen Road.
if southern water invested into infrastructure then this would not happen the £90 million pound fine would have been a good start
So everyone has a week to waste water by washing there cars?
You can still wash your car, but you need to use buckets not a hose pipe. Read the article…
By law you have to wash windows and lights and number plates, suits me but I use a bucket and sponge, not rocket science.
So the window cleaner’s are going to lose work.So are southern water going to cover the wages for the loss of earnings?
Commercial uses are usually exempt
“The exceptions typically permit commercial activity”
Commercial activities not affected, so they should be ok.
Commercial activity is permitted.
What a pratt does not affect commercial
If they are going to restrict the usage then they can give me a discount on their bill as I will be paying for a service they can’t provide.
I won’t hold my breath….
Keep building houses on the island and in the south, you know it makes sense.
so you can still fill a paddling pool with water from a tape using a watering can but not with a hosepipe but its from the same place and the same amount of water
Why are you getting dislikes for an obvious work around?
Or directly from an outside tap. Or you can use a non flexible pipe which isn’t a hosepipe. Or you can fill up a water butt and pump it all over your garden. I’m lucky that my garden slopes. All I have to do is turn on the outside tap and leave it running for a couple of hours and it all gets watered.
Yeah!? Where’s the sense in that! It’s still the same just takes longer derrrr!!! Daft a ….
Commercial activity should be restricted first not domestic users. That’s how they do it in Germany with gas restrictions. They should also be forced to build more capacity. Be it through reservoirs or desalination plants. None of that will happen though, because its easier to pick on the public to cover up their abject failure to plan anything.
Not a chance will you stop me watering my garden
Agree I have grown a lot of veg this year to counteract the cost of living, they are not helping the human race much by doing a hose pipe ban, just means it is going to be made harder to keep my garden crops alive.
I use a hosepipe to water my garden as my disability restricts me from carrying watering cans. I dont use alot of water when I do but I enjoy looking after my plants, especially my roses. My family will have to do this for me now. This really saddens me.
The Southern Water website lists the permitted exceptions which includes ‘drip or trickle irrigation systems’ for Blue Badge holders.
For my part, recycled washing up water by bucket or watering can to the plants or to wash the car isn’t as convenient but far better than any real restrictions on use if it does substantially deteriorate however in the last two weeks we’ve had reports of major water leaks in East Cowes, Newport, Northwood and doubtless others I’ve not noted which Southern Water should be called upon to give a formal, written, explanation about.
You can still enjoy your garden even if for a while family or friends do it for you. Better this then get to a stage where we are restricted in household usage. At least we can be thankful we HAVE water to use unlike other parts of the world were you have to dig 80 feet searching for life savi g water. Think on.
There are a number of exceptions to the rules, including if you are a blue badge holder
….
What difference does that make ? – how is it acceptable that a blue badge holder can hose down their windows but others cant.
what kind of discrimination and preferential treatment is this –
disabled people want equality and yet here we are, seeing them being treated differently – equality my a^^e
I didn’t get that at first either, seemed odd, but I guess it’s to do with disabled people who possibly can’t hold a watering can. That’s all I can think of.
Yes are their windows dirtier than ours? Gardens thirstier cars more grubby? Daft daft daft again! Think before you speak please
I presume if you are a blue badge holder permitted to use disabled parking spaces you are less physically able to walk any distance or carry heavy objects such as a full watering can. Do you really object to a disabled person being able to live their life without struggling more than they already have to? You’re making an issue out of nothing.
Well that’s sorted, get a blue badge holder to pop round to water your garden with hose, job done.
Most water wasted with use of power showers and baths. Why some people think they have to have 2 a day . What happened to once a week and kids sharing bath water ?. However if they keep that up we could have reduced pressure, next year have to get from standpipe. Please stop wasting.
Southern Water – the c**p organisation that not only delivers a s**t service and pours s**t into The Medina and The Solent, but also charges us for taking all our s**t away via a their inadequate sewage system.
Privatise essential services and you end up in the s**t!
If you want communism, f*ck off to Russia
No one has mentioned here just a couple of weeks ago that Southern emptied treated water into the sea around Bembridge St Helens etc maybe just maybe they could justify how this happened and why maybe they see the sea as their pond
Well I hope morrisons and other companies shut down there coin operated car washes
But they are not using hoses
A lot of car washes recycle the water, it gets filtered and comes back round to wash another car.
Most of the gardens on the island are a mess anyway, so they wont need water, and if they did the water isnt clean anyway.
What happened to all that flood water at the beginning of the year
Power washers use less water , try connecting power washer to hose run power washers to a bucket then put another bucket under an open tap and see which fills first by a long way and it’s not the power washer
We’re surrounded by water. Why can’t water companies invest in desalination plants?
People are not seeing the bigger picture… Where is all the water? Try looking in the local supermarket or cash and carry… Its all in plastic bottles being sold to you. Stop buying bottles of so called spring water and then there will not be pallets of the stuff sat In warehouses around the world.
The water table will rise everywhere if its not stored in plastic bottles.
And the downturn in bottled water sales would mean less plastic bottles littering the ocean and the world.
Next they will be selling bags of fresh clean air and the world will be short of oxygen
OMG You need serious help. Take deep breaths slowly and chill out. Repeat to yourself – I will stay calm I will stay calm. If not then take up something like yoga. Other than that have a couple of stiff drinks. Dress is one of the biggest killers.
Should have said stress not dress
If nearly all the houses on the Isle of Wight have a water meter, meaning you pay for every drop. How can they ban you from using water you have paid for or how you choose to use it. Most of the rest of Hampshire just pay a fixed rate no matter how much they use.
Why do we have no decent underground water supply or reservoirs? Has the Council sold them all off? A quarter of our water appears to come from the River Test. Surely with all the rain at the beginning of year which is also becoming a current occurrence we should look into further storage for use in the future predicted Heat Waves now – not in years to come. Be too late then!!
so “For the past 8 months, the South had seen very little in the way of rainfall” I hope we are going to get a discount on the surface water drainage charge
Water constantly pours into the sea around this Island. Shanklin & Luccombe Chines. Bonchurch Waterfall, Wheelers Bay outlet from the brewery spring. Ventnor Cascade, Flowers brook, Woody brook, Binnel brook, Castle Haven, water Shute, Whale Chine, Grange Chine & Compton all have outlets flowing into the sea. All these outlets could no doubt fill one of the Great Lakes in a year let alone our rivers & Southern Water are happy to let it all go into the sea. IWC planning should head the warning & stop granting permission for more builds.
Two things. We can all start saving water now, and Southern Water can start repairing leaks.
20 million gallons of water wasted by Southern Water with broken pipes each day. That’s where the problem is.
Honestly this country will be like Mali in a couple of years if climate change continues.