Water firm imposes hosepipe ban in north-west England

[Gatt]

A hosepipe ban is to be introduced in most of north-west England for the first time in 14 years.

The temporary ban, which will affect millions of householders in the region, will come into force at 0600 BST on Friday, United Utilities has said.

The firm said the measure will help "safeguard essential supplies".

BBC News - Water firm imposes hosepipe ban in north-west England

 

Please note that it is currently chucking it down here!

[SteveBentley]

Not massively surprising - this is a photo I took at Dovestones Reservoir last week, you can see the high water marker on the side of the overflow, and how far below it the current level is

 

[Gatt]

Bloody hell - any lower and you'll start to see the hidden village!

[Arcath]

Please note that it is currently chucking it down here!

 

i was just about to say that, i actually had to use my wipers on the way to work this morning! still warm tho...

[localzuk]

I won't be surprised if we have such things happen down here in the SW too. The amount of rain here is hovering below a 5th of the average for this time of year.

 

Not that it'd affect me though, as I don't own a garden or a hose...

[SteveBentley]

Bloody hell - any lower and you'll start to see the hidden village!

 

I'm told that the village below Haweswater is starting to emerge!

[Vegas]

I won't be surprised if we have such things happen down here in the SW too. The amount of rain here is hovering below a 5th of the average for this time of year.

 

Not that it'd affect me though, as I don't own a garden or a hose...

 

I hope not, I just laid a new lawn 4 weeks ago so my hose is on every other night.

[Gatt]

Put a sign in your garden saying "Car Wash" - then you will be exempt from the ban

[srochford]

I heard an interesting discussion this morning about the problem. Part of the reason that the north west is having problems is to do with the rock. In London and the south east there is porous chalk so underground aquifers form as the water trickles down through the surface and we can then extract that water even though we don't get much rainfall.

 

In areas of harder rock, the rainfall just runs away (into the rivers and then the sea???) so even though there's more rain, we're not capturing it (and probably can't do so easily)

 

Think I got that right but it sort of makes sense.

 

What we need is the various water companies to employ a huge number of people to build a water grid so we can collect more water and channel it around the country. Benefits would be long term water security and also employing lots of people who currently don't have jobs. Of course, it would cost a vast amount of money with no real impact on increasing profits so I don't suppose it will happen.

[Rydra]

I volunteer the towns of Dunstable and Luton to be used as the new reservoir. It'd be the most useful thing either town has done in decades, and it would be fair to say, would finally solve all the traffic problems in the area.

[john]

I'm told that the village below Haweswater is starting to emerge!

 

I also heard this the other day so its probably right

[tech_guy]

Well, in my part of darkest Warwickshire we haven't had rain for nearly eight weeks now. I blame the North Koreans and cucumber sandwiches.

[localzuk]

Let's hope they become 'particularly active on leakage at times of drought.'

 

Hosepipe ban firm told to improve leaks record (From Lancashire Telegraph)

 

 

 

I don't know how much 460 million litres is in the scheme of things, but I bet it would fill a fair few hosepipes.

 

From that article:

 

"In the North West almost one in every four litres of water that is supposed to come through our taps is lost. Only Thames Water and Severn Trent lose a greater volume, with Thames Water leaking 700million alone.

 

UU, which made a £500m pre-tax profit last year, said fixing leaks was one of its top priorities. It is investing £200million over the next five years on improving its pipe network."

 

A quarter of the water! And for a company making £500m pre-tax profit, £200m over 5 years investment isn't very much... ie. £40m a year, less than 10% profit.

 

If they really cared about reducing the leaks, they'd be investing £200m a year for the next 5 years. But then, that'd damage dividends.

[localzuk]

It says that fines of upto £1000 can be given out for anyone flouting the law?

 

How does this work? Who enforces the fines? What laws are you breaking by using a service you pay for from a private company?

 

IIRC the 1991 Water Act makes the edicts by water companies legally enforceable. Much like trespassing on a railway is a criminal offence even though they're owned and operated by 'private' companies.

[CHR1S]

Well, in my part of darkest Warwickshire we haven't had rain for nearly eight weeks now. I blame the North Koreans and cucumber sandwiches.

 

Im in Brum and it rained yesterday, last night and all morning... I would gladly swap our rain for your sun

[sjatkn]

I don't know how much 460 million litres is in the scheme of things, but I bet it would fill a fair few hosepipes.

 

According to Wikipedia the volume of an olympic swiming pool is 2,500,000 litres, so that is 184 olympic sized swimming pools being lost everyday!

[CHR1S]

I wonder what the cost of a few desalination plants around the country would be?

[localzuk]

I wonder what the cost of a few desalination plants around the country would be?

 

They recently finished one on the Thames. £270m for a plant that can handle enough water per day for 1m people. They'll only use it when they're short of water though, as operating it is reasonably expensive IIRC.

[CHR1S]

Didnt realise the costs involved were so hight!

[srochford]

If they really cared about reducing the leaks, they'd be investing £200m a year for the next 5 years. But then, that'd damage dividends.

 

I don't know the situation for UU but for Thames Water the issue isn't really how much they want to invest in doing the work, it's also about the practicalities of doing it. We have a situation in London where there are major road works all over the city caused by water main replacement. We know it needs doing but doing much more of it and we might as well put up "closed" signs round the M25 and all move to the Lake District for the duration :-)

 

It's not helped by the weird attitude of local councils such as mine (Hammersmith and Fulham) who publish a "newspaper" which can have articles bemoaning the water leaks and a few pages later other articles bemoaning the chaos caused by the companies trying to fix them. Add to that the fixation H&F has with trying to stop Thames water fixing sewers and it's amazing anything at all gets done!

[Duane_Dibbley]

BBC News - Water firm imposes hosepipe ban in north-west England

 

Please note that it is currently chucking it down here!

 

Reservoir levels are pretty much unaffected by rain in the spring/summer, it all depends on how much it rains in the winter. It didn't rain much in the winter.

[SteveBentley]

What we need is some method for collecting snow off the ground and transporting it to the reservoirs.

[localzuk]

What we need is some method for collecting snow off the ground and transporting it to the reservoirs.

 

You mean like they used to do before freezers existed when they shipped ice from Scandinavia and stored it in ice barns?

[Rydra]

The funny thing is, most of these private companies rely on someone informing them of the use of a hosepipe. If you get on with your neighbours, just agree not to tell on eachother, and continue filling your swimming pool while you hold that wet t shirt competition.

 

I'm lucky enough to not be on a water meter due to their inability to fit one when I moved in. So I could in fact pull a del-boy move and start selling bottled 'spring water' from my tap, and they'd probably not be any the wiser about it

[srochford]

I'm lucky enough to not be on a water meter due to their inability to fit one when I moved in. So I could in fact pull a del-boy move and start selling bottled 'spring water' from my tap, and they'd probably not be any the wiser about it

 

Best fill the bottles now and store them safely - the next step after hosepipe bans is turning off the water completely and going to standpipes in the street. Can't remember when that last happened but pretty sure it's in my (very long!) lifetime.