Hose Pipe Ban Finally Lifted In The SE.

[John]

Today's good news for washing the Cali is that the last four water companies with hosepipe bans, here in the SE, have announced they are lifting them from today Monday. :grin: :clap

The restrictions, which had affected millions of people in southern and eastern England, had been in place since early April.

The companies say they are ending the ban because of the abnormally heavy rainfall across much of the country, well its not exactly Rocket Science. :crazy

The bad news Senior forecaster Matt Dobson said England and Wales were unlikely to see any sunny weather during the next 10 days, although the forecast for today was more promising. :rain

John

 

[KernowLad]

What hosepipe ban?

 

[MKRW]

:barmy The hose pipe bans been lifted.

I have no excuse not to wash the cali.

Just been cycling down the S bends at Boxhill where the Olympic Road Race will take place at the end of the month, missed by lightning by 200m and so much :rain that even the top of Boxhill was a torrent of water.

Hoping the weather clears for this weekend so we can get out camping...

 

[John]

This rain is getting me down now golf game cancelled tomorrow and local forecast showing rain for next 4 days.

DOOMED :crazy :doh

:rain

 

[GrannyJen]

An old thread resurrected ...

Are we in for a "hosepipe ban" summer?

I know that regionally weather has been so variable this year but whilst is has been unseasonably cold it has also been dry.

My local area and the ground is like concrete. We have not seen measurable rain for about a month and forecast is no significant rain for the next three weeks at least.

 

[Perfectos]

An old thread resurrected ...

Are we in for a "hosepipe ban" summer?

I know that regionally weather has been so variable this year but whilst is has been unseasonably cold it has also been dry.

My local area and the ground is like concrete. We have not seen measurable rain for about a month and forecast is no significant rain for the next three weeks at least.

I was thinking the same thing we are due a scorcher, particularly now global warming is a thing, not just weather!

 

[Velma's Dad]

We had the wettest October for years in the SE (so I was informed this week, haven't checked). Google says groundwater levels - again in SE - are above average right now.

So hosepipe ban, yes almost certainly.

Coincidentally the water company is completely unable to determine which particular water main supplies our house. It appears there are three under the road and they've no clue which is which. They were very honest about it.

 

[Joker 1299]

This morning was ice cold, now it’s raining. Who knows what’s next?

 

[Borris]

Where we live in East Kent a good local bellwether regarding the state of the water table is the Nailbourne Stream:

For some reason unknown to yours truly, it has always flooded every seven years. The rest of the time it's dry.

Our water is pumped from boreholes in the chalk aquifer so I assume that when the stream flows it's mainly because the ground and possibly the aquifer are fully saturated. This has been a flood year:

This is usually a street.

However, this may become a thing of the past soon. They are building so many new houses in the southeast, apparently with little or no new extra infrastructure to cope with the vastly increased demand. Hose pipe bans are not uncommon in these parts but it's my guess that they could become a regular thing unless Southern Water get their act together.

Those two words Southern and Water usually tend to send shivers down my spine. We've had a long and complicated relationship. The latest upset was when SW rang me recently to say that they were preparing my bill and had noticed my water consumption had increased dramatically. By several hundred thousand litres actually!!! After I'd completed some tests I found that we had a serious leak somewhere under the front garden. To my disgust they said that "due to covid" they wouldn't being able to help me locate the leak. If it were an electrical or gas supply issue those utility companies would have been straight out but oh no not SW. So despite what it says on their vans they weren't interested in "Working together" or " Finding and fixing water leaks".

So what with the rapid expansion of East Kent's housing stock together with SW's apparent lack of current interest in stopping domestic water leaks, the answer is yes we probably are in for a hose pipe ban this summer and many others as well.

 

[Velma's Dad]

Like Borris's river in Kent, our local Chiltern chalk stream river, called the Misbourne, comes and goes and about 20 years or so ago went completely dry for several years.

A big concern locally is the boring of the HS2 tunnel through the aquifer and its possible impact on the river. Astonishingly it seems the HS2 company only applied last week for the necessary Environment Agency licence for the tunnelling work which is due to start imminently.

While I haven't been particularly anti HS2 so far, the way local issues have been managed over the past year or so haven't given me confidence about the management of the tunnelling in what is a very sensitive hydrological zone.

 

[GrannyJen]

Historically where I live is the driest part of the country, also thankfully the sunniest.

The last time it was this dry, together with cold and wind, was 2014. We had a spectacular summer. I am hopeful, although to be honest I read drought every time I go on my local beach greensward.

 

[66tim99]

Like Borris's river in Kent, our local Chiltern chalk stream river, called the Misbourne, comes and goes and about 20 years or so ago went completely dry for several years.

A big concern locally is the boring of the HS2 tunnel through the aquifer and its possible impact on the river. Astonishingly it seems the HS2 company only applied last week for the necessary Environment Agency licence for the tunnelling work which is due to start imminently.

While I haven't been particularly anti HS2 so far, the way local issues have been managed over the past year or so haven't given me confidence about the management of the tunnelling in what is a very sensitive hydrological zone.

The Environmental Permit application was preceeded by 2 years of testing trials and discussions

 

[Velma's Dad]

The Environmental Permit application was preceeded by 2 years of testing trials and discussions

I don't doubt that but it doesn't give local people confidence in the way the formalities have been conducted. A question ended up being asked in the House of Lords a couple of weeks ago as the draft risk assessments have not been made public, and still aren't. It's all behind closed doors which I think is extremely unsatisfactory given the huge scale and impact especially of the protracted construction operations and the issue of the aquifer and river which are very environmentally sensitive.

I live about a mile or so from the HS2 route and there are multiple and large scale upheavals for the works in the local area including roads having to be diverted and water supplies re-routed. The communication with local communities has been much worse than I'd expected, quite amateurish actually. At the first village hall briefing meeting the HS2 team turned up without a projector and endeavoured to talk through their presentation with nothing on the screen. They then read out the modelled traffic movements on the local roads but were unable to give any context at all about the baseline traffic levels - I had to help them out on that from the back of the room as I'd looked them up before the meeting, they hadn't been hard to find online.