{"id":740801,"date":"2026-08-17T12:38:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T12:38:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/740801\/"},"modified":"2026-08-17T12:38:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T12:38:08","slug":"first-wessex-water-hosepipe-ban-since-1976-announced","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/740801\/","title":{"rendered":"First Wessex Water hosepipe ban since 1976 announced"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A water company has announced its first hosepipe ban in 50 years after weeks of drought and record-breaking demand for water.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Wessex Water&#8217;s ban &#8211; its first since 1976 &#8211; will come into force from Tuesday, bringing it in line with eight other water companies nationwide that have introduced restrictions over the summer.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The company supplies water to around 1.4 million customers across Bath and parts of Somerset, Dorset and Wiltshire.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;This isn&#8217;t a decision we&#8217;ve made lightly and we&#8217;re sorry for the inconvenience it will cause,&#8221; said the company&#8217;s chief executive Ruth Jefferson.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;The prolonged and extreme dry weather has meant demand across our region has\u202fconsistently remained\u202fat more than 400 million litres per day, 30 per cent above average for this time of year,&#8221; she added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;[That&#8217;s] the equivalent of almost half a million hosepipes running for a full hour every day.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">July 11 saw the company&#8217;s highest ever demand, with 449m litres used. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A water company has announced its first hosepipe ban in 50 years after weeks of drought and record-breaking&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":740802,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[84,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-740801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=740801"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740801\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/740802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=740801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=740801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=740801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}