Please see below for a message from South East Water…
Water use is soaring so we need your help!
What’s the issue?
Hot temperatures and dry weather this Bank Holiday saw exceptional demand placed on the drinking water network as everyone spends more time at home, particularly in the garden.
This meant we had to pump an extra 140 million litres of water into our pipeline network on Monday to keep up with demand. The amount of water used was around a third more than usual for this time of year!
It looks like this warm weather is set to continue.
What we’re doing?
We understand that the world we now live in is very different to before and although we make very sophisticated plans covering the next 60 years of water use, as with everyone else, we could never have predicted this unprecedented situation which COVID-19 has brought about.
The water is available in our boreholes and key reservoirs, the problem we’re facing is that at times people use water at a faster rate than we can pump it from our sources, treat it and get it to customers’ taps.
Our key worker teams worked tirelessly over the weekend to keep taps running and will continue to do so, but to ensure there is enough water for everyone as the hot weather continues we need your help to spread the message and make everyone in your community water aware.
How you can help
We’re asking everyone to help make sure there’s enough water to go around by taking two simple steps – let your lawns go brown, and be proud of your dirty car.
These two easy actions will help make sure there is enough water for our communities, while fighting the virus.
We urge you to share this message through all you channels to help ensure all communities are aware.
To help we’ve created a dedicated web page just for you with a poster, advert and suggested social media posts you can download and share on your websites, social media channels, noticeboards and in your newsletters.
Water is a key tool in the fight against the virus as it keeps people healthy and hydrated and is essential to keep up with the extra hygiene measures everyone is taking. Water is also key for the hospitals and care homes across the South East region so we need your help making sure there’s enough to go around.