A water firm boss has blamed individuals working from house for a brand new hosepipe ban. 

South East Water will impose the first hosepipe ban of the summer season from Monday, affecting greater than two million properties and companies throughout Kent and Sussex.

Its chief govt, David Hinton, stated in a letter to clients that post-pandemic working from house was a "key factor" behind the ban, because it has "increased drinking water demand".

He wrote: "Over the past three years the way in which drinking water is being used across the southeast has changed considerably.

"The rise of working from house has elevated consuming water demand in commuter cities by round 20% over a really brief interval, testing our present infrastructure."

Mr Hinton additionally blamed low rainfall since April for leaving water butts empty, in addition to pointing to a latest spell of scorching climate which he claims led to a spike in demand for consuming water.

"Our reservoir and aquifer stocks of raw water, essential to our water supply but not ready to be used, are in a good position. However, demand for treated mains water, which takes time to process and deliver, was greater than we could meet," he stated.

"Over the past week we have needed to find water to supply the equivalent of an additional four towns the size of Maidstone or Eastbourne every day."

Greg Clark, the Conservative MP for Tunbridge Wells, instructed The Times: "Their solely job is to ship consuming water.

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"But in my constituency, they have run out of water twice in six months - once just before Christmas when we had a cold snap, and now after a small and unexceptional heatwave.

"What they're describing when it comes to individuals working for house is under no circumstances particular to this space.

"There has been for some time a tendency for people to work more from home. A water company should be able to predict and accommodate for this."

A spokeswoman for the water regulator Ofwat instructed The Times: "South East Water should do higher to foretell and handle operational points, assist clients, and have interaction with them on what is going on and why.

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"Customers shall be asking why, for the second time in six months, their water firm is being caught out by the climate."

South East Water's Head of Service Management, Steve Andrews, defended the ban, saying it was "launched to make sure that we are able to ship consuming water to all our clients constantly".

He added: "We need to thank our clients for being conscious of their water use and remind them to proceed to make use of water properly over the approaching weekend."