Anglian Water urges customers to use water wisely

It's as the hot weather's predicted to continue

Published 16th Jun 2023

Anglian Water's urging everyone in Peterborough, Stamford and Rutland to use supplies wisely, and reuse water where possible.

The utility company says it's continuing to face huge demand during the hot weather.

An additional 200 million litres of water's been pumped into homes it supplies in the last week - that's almost 20% more than normal and equates to every customer drinking roughly an additional 100 cups of tea a day, or each taking an extra three-minute shower a day.

Lottie Williams, Water Saving Manager, at Anglian Water said: “We want everyone to enjoy the fabulous sunshine, and use the water they need to stay hydrated and healthy, however we’re asking customers to be even more mindful of their water usage at the moment so that there’s enough to go round everyone while leaving enough in the environment for nature to thrive too.

"Paddling pools are the go-to cooler, but a standard pool can use up to 400 litres of water – that's four full water butts. It would be great if people could reuse this water, for example to water their plants, instead of using the tap.”

Anglian Water provides over four million customers with drinking water across the East of England, supplying on average a billion litres of water a day to homes and businesses.

The East of England is one of the driest regions in the country, with parts of the region still in ‘drought status’ as classified by the Environment Agency.

Lottie added, “We have an army of engineers working round the clock to make sure we can keep taps running today and tomorrow. The resilience we’ve created, combined with record low levels of leakage in our networks and 90% of our customers having meters, means we’re able to manage drawn out periods of intense hot weather.

"And while our water supplies are currently in relatively good health across the region, what we can’t do is ‘make more water’, so we must all continue to work together and that includes relying on our customers to use water wisely and reuse wherever possible, while continuing to have fun in the sun.”

Hear all the latest news from across the UK on the hour, every hour, on Greatest Hits Radio on DAB, smartspeaker, at greatesthitsradio.co.uk, and on the Rayo app.