Drinking Water Supplies in Sussex
South East Water – Customer and business restrictions
To conserve as much water as possible, from today, 10 October, South East Water have removed some of the exemptions currently in place as part of our Temporary Use Ban, or hosepipe ban.
These exemptions include:
- Watering new lawns at domestic premises
- Watering trees, whips, saplings and hedges planted before the ban and within the last three years
- Watering food crops at domestic premises or private allotments
If we previously wrote to customers to explain they were exempt from the hosepipe restrictions, this has ended and they are no longer able to use their hosepipe.
If they were not exempt but activities they were doing were covered by an exemption, this has also now ended.
This means the only time where a hosepipe can now be used is for health and safety purposes.
Alongside this, we’ve fast-tracked several projects to:
- Make sure water can move more easily around our network
- Take the pressure off existing supply sources
- Transfer more water into Sussex
For example, a new pipeline connecting treated water from Bewl in Kent to the East Sussex network will soon be active. This will move water between the counties for the first time, giving us greater resilience and flexibility and allows us to move water from areas with a good supply to those that need it more.
While all this will help, as mentioned previously if we do not apply for this Drought Order, there is likely to be a severe impact to the public water supply meaning we will not have the water available to supply to customer taps.
We do not take applying for a Drought Order lightly, and the actions we are taking will help us to carefully and responsibly manage these vital resources for the benefit of both our customers and the environment.
