The spring of 2025 brought extraordinary challenges to our supply region, officially recorded as the driest spring in England since 1893.
As we navigated a scorching summer marked by four separate heatwaves, the demand for drinking water soared to unprecedented levels. On 30 June, consumption peaked at a staggering 680 million litres in a single day, which is 105 million litres more than our average daily summer demand.
This extra volume is the equivalent to adding a town the size of Maidstone or Eastbourne (with a population of more than 100,000 people) to our network overnight. Because of this intense demand coupled with the severe lack of rainfall, raw water supplies were heavily depleted, leaving critical surface reservoirs like Ardingly and Arlington at exceptionally low levels.
To protect the environment and ensure sufficient water remained available for everyone's essential daily needs, we enacted our Drought Plan.
As part of this necessary response, a Temporary Use Ban (commonly known as a hosepipe ban) was introduced.
We implemented this for customers in Kent and Sussex on 18 July 2025.
To reduce the amount of water being released from Ardingly Reservoir, we then applied for a Drought Permit to temporarily adjust the amount of water we were required to release into the River Ouse.
In conjunction with asking our customers to reduce their water use, we worked intensively behind the scenes to preserve water by investing nearly £40 million over the course of the year to detect and repair leaks. Our expanded leak detection teams successfully repaired over 21,000 leaks on our network during the year, a 10 per cent increase from previous years, alongside fixing more than 6,000 leaks on customers' properties.
We also recognised that the restrictions could be particularly challenging for some, so vulnerable customers registered on our Priority Services Register (PSR) were granted automatic exemptions from the ban. To further support the community in reducing their usage, free water-saving devices such as showerheads and LeakyLoo™ strips were distributed through our partnership with Save Water Save Money, helping households more easily cut down on waste.
Ultimately, the incredible cooperation and patience of our customers during the restrictions, combined with the much-needed return of winter rainfall, allowed the water levels in our surface reservoirs and underground aquifers to recover and return to normal.
Consequently, the hosepipe ban was officially lifted for all customers on 5 February 2026. However, our work to build a more resilient network continues.
Looking ahead, we have begun upgrading our network with smart meter technology, rolling out from January 2026.
This new technology will empower customers to measure their water use more easily and enable earlier leak detection, ensuring that our region's precious water resources remain protected for the future.
We are also improving resilience by investing in our infrastructure.