Ever since the hosepipe ban came into force in the North West of England on 9 July I have heard a number of people question how there can be a hosepipe ban in place even when there have been floods in the region.
To try to explain I’ll use an analogy – humour me!
Noel runs a chain of successful Christmas shops in the North West. Due to the seasonal nature of his business he earns most of his money during the lead up to Christmas, and the profit he makes during that time allows him to keep his shops open all year round.
In the lead up to Christmas 2009 Noel’s business only sold 308 boxes of baubles, compared to the usual 529 that he sold in an average year. This meant that his business had only made 58% of what it made in an average winter and Noel was worried that he wouldn’t have enough profit to keep the shops open throughout the summer.
In July 2010 one of the towns where he had a shop held a fancy dress parade and that shop sold 50 boxes of baubles in one day, as locals looked for innovative ways to decorate their floats. It was a boost to that shop but the profit wasn’t enough to make up for the shortfall across all the shops in that year.
To ensure that his business retained enough money to keep trading until next Christmas Noel made the difficult decision to reduce the opening hours of all his shops over the summer.
I apologise for my clumsy analogy but it does illustrate the issue â- short, localised periods of rain are not enough to make up for the low water levels across the region. The numbers are based on the figures for the region that provides drinking water for the North West, with boxes of baubles replaced by millimetres of rainfall.
One fact to bear in mind is that running a hosepipe for just one hour uses as much water as an average family of four would use in an entire day, so even if you are outside the region covered by a ban please think twice before using a hosepipe!
That analogy makes sense :)It is galling when the onus is put on us to watch every drop while the water companies lose more than 3.5 billion litres of water daily through broken and leaking pipes in England and Wales 2007, according to Ofwat.That’s more than a fifth of the 15 billion litres supplied by the UK water system each day and is more than the entire amount of bottled water drunk by Britons in a year. It’s annoying to have a reduced supply and pay for the stuff to be processed many times over, unnecessarily.
Claire, I have to grudgingly accept your statistics, but in the spirit of tabloid journalism, I never let the truth get in the way of a good story.I was driving through the northwest on the day that the hosepipe ban was announced. True to form, the rain persisted all day, the previous time I was in the area, I was affected by the closure of all road bridges in the Cumbria as a result of the flooding.(To be fair, the areas worst hit by the flooding in Cumbria have not had a hosepipe ban imposed)Having been brought up in Cumbria, and now living in East Anglia, I have experience of the wettest, and the driest regions of England. The annual rainfall where I live equates to 3 months’ rainfall in Cumbria. So where is our hosepipe ban?I can’t remember the last time we had a hosepipe ban imposed in our region. It must have been at least 10 years ago.Anglian Water has lots of critics, but, from where I sit, they appear to be outperforming lots of other water companies in the way they are dealing with pipe leaks and breakages.
Claire, I have to grudgingly accept your statistics, but in the spirit of tabloid journalism, I never let the truth get in the way of a good story.I was driving through the northwest on the day that the hosepipe ban was announced. True to form, the rain persisted all day, the previous time I was in the area, I was affected by the closure of all road bridges in the Cumbria as a result of the flooding.(To be fair, the areas worst hit by the flooding in Cumbria have not had a hosepipe ban imposed)Having been brought up in Cumbria, and now living in East Anglia, I have experience of the wettest, and the driest regions of England. The annual rainfall where I live equates to 3 months’ rainfall in Cumbria. So where is our hosepipe ban?I can’t remember the last time we had a hosepipe ban imposed in our region. It must have been at least 10 years ago.Anglian Water has lots of critics, but, from where I sit, they appear to be outperforming lots of other water companies in the way they are dealing with pipe leaks and breakages.
Both excellent points – I know East Anglia is drier than some parts of the Middle East so there is obviously a water management issue underlying the statistics. It would be interesting to know if East Anglians are more careful with their water usage and also the comparative costs for each region. Repairs cost money so you may pay a far higher water rate. I will investigate further!I personally think though that regardless of the shortcomings of water suppliers it is up to us to reduce our water usage, as abstracting and cleaning drinking water takes huge amounts of energy and can cause the water levels in rivers to drop too low to support wildlife.