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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
National
Kieren Williams

Brits' fury at Thames Water hosepipe ban as firm wastes 24% water EVERY DAY

Brits have raged at Thames Water for leaking hundreds of millions of litres of water daily as the firm confirms it is likely it will introduce a hosepipe ban.

After the driest July on record, Thames Water admitted it might implement a ban.

But a number of Brits have taken to social media to highlight the water firm's failings with local leaks where the soon-to-be rationed water is being wasted each day.

It comes as Thames Water is shown to be currently wasting around 24 per cent of its water every day - which accounts to more than 624million litres of water.

This means every four days an entire day's water usage is wasted.

One person tweeted: “Appalling water leak in Hopton Road, corner of Streatham High Road, #Streatham.

"Thames Water put up plastic barriers but no sign of any further work by @thameswater over the last week since. Water shortage? What Water shortage?”

Their fury was shared by a number of others who had similar leaks in their local areas that were contributing to some of the hundreds of millions of litres of wasted water.

A Thames Water tanker pumps water in to the tanks in Northend village (Geoffrey Swaine/REX/Shutterstock)

Another social media user pointed out there had been a local leak close to where they lived for weeks now.

They said: “Why are you asking us not to use hosepipes when you should be attending to your own water wastage?

"Like this one, by the side of Severndroog castle that you've left for WEEKS now”.

A third person was greeted by what they branded a “water feature” on their street when they returned home from holiday.

They said: “Great advice seen as you are starting a hosepipe ban.

"This is the water feature in our street when we arrived home from holiday at 1.30am this morning and has been going all day, even faster flowing now.

"Shocking that no one is stopping this or saving the water.”

Thames Water have even accused of making one leak worse after attending it before forgetting about it entirely.

A tanker from Thames Water pumps water into another tanker in Northend in Oxfordshire (PA)

The woman also claimed enough water was being wasted to serve a family for an entire day.

There were more calls for Thames Water to fix several leaks before they started restricting people's water usage.

Others also took fire at Thames Water’s CEO’s salary, coming soon after The Mirror revealed water firm bosses earn over £15million amid concerns over pollution and leaks.

CEO Sarah Bentley received £1,230,000 in pay and bonuses this year as Brits face a nearly unprecedented cost-of-living crisis.

On its website, Thames Water admit to leaking so much water.

Bottles of water supplied by Thames Water for residents of Northend (PA)

The company said: “Every day we supply 2.6billion litres of water, but not all of that gets to our customers.

"At the moment, we leak almost 24 per cent of the water we supply."

Yorkshire Water confirmed it was also bringing in a hosepipe ban and it has been reported by the Mail Online that Anglian and South West Water are both considering a similar ban too.

South East Water, Southern Water and the Isle of Wight and Welsh Water have already declared bans.

If all three came in, combined with the Thames Water, it could mean over 32million people in England and Wales face water restrictions.

The country suffered its driest July on records with some parts of the UK getting only 5mm of rain (PA)

Cathryn Ross, strategy and regulatory affairs director at Thames Water told BBC Radio 4's Today: “In all probability we'll be moving to introduce the hosepipe ban in the next couple of weeks.

“We totally accept we need to do better on fixing leaks, that's why we're fixing more than 1,100 leaks every week.

"We are not where we need to be, we have a lot of work to do to fix Thames Water.

“We're going to have to look at all the tools in the toolkit to make sure that we keep customers with taps flowing.

“We use 150 litres of water per person per day in England. In Germany it's 120, in Copenhagen, where they've had a big push on this, it's down to nearly 100.”

A hosepipe ban comes into place from August 12 for some areas of Sussex (Adam Gerrard / Daily Mirror)

Ms Ross also said that it was likely climate change would force households to further cut water usage.

A spokesperson for Thames Water said: “We know it’s not acceptable to be losing so much precious water but we’re doing something about it and our shareholders have recently approved an additional £2billion into the business so we can improve outcomes for customers, leakage and river health.

"It’s not going to be quick, but we’re making progress and we’ve met our target to reduce leakage for the last three years, reducing the amount of water lost by 10.2 per cent since 2019/20.

"Our aim is to reduce our leakage by 20.4 per cent between 2020 and 2025 and in 2021/22 we fixed over 60,000 leaks, that’s almost 1,200 on average every week.”

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