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Anglian Water has a Temporary Use Ban, the legal name for a hosepipe ban, in force since 11 July 2026, with no end date announced, so it runs until further notice. The Anglian Water supply area across the East of England, with Hartlepool explicitly excluded. Anglian Water supplies 5 million people in total. A watering can, a bucket and water you have collected yourself are never restricted by a Temporary Use Ban.
Anglian Water's first hosepipe ban since 2012. Hartlepool (TS24 to TS27) is supplied by Hartlepool Water, a separate Anglian Water entity with its own water resource zone, and is explicitly EXCLUDED from this ban.
You cannot use a hosepipe or sprinkler at home. A watering can or bucket is still fine, and the maximum fine is £1,000.
We are an unofficial tracker, so Anglian Water’s own notice is the version that legally applies to you.
Anglian Water's restriction covers its whole supply area across the East of England, about 5 million people from Lincolnshire and Norfolk down through Cambridgeshire, Suffolk, Essex, Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire, with one carved-out exception 200 miles north in Hartlepool.
The other boundary problem is Essex and Suffolk, where Essex & Suffolk Water, a separate company in the Northumbrian Water group, supplies large parts of the CO, IP, NR and SS districts that look like Anglian territory on a map.
Whole supply area except Hartlepool. A postcode matching neither list below resolves to "check with your supplier", never to a guess either way.
Source: Anglian Water
Anglian Water's restriction became enforceable from 1.01am on Saturday 11 July 2026. Its statutory notice has since been reissued as version 3, last updated on 17 July 2026, and that document, not the customer-facing summary page, is the one carrying the legally operative terms. Reading the notice rather than the summary is worth the effort here because the notice is what a prosecution would rest on.
Its guidance is unusually clear that the restriction attaches to mains water rather than to hosepipes as objects: customers may keep doing the same activities using a bucket or watering can where feasible, or using water that is not from the mains. If the water never came through an Anglian Water main, the notice does not reach it.
Source: Anglian Water
A Temporary Use Ban does not prohibit hosepipes in general. It prohibits the eleven uses at s.76(2) of the Water Industry Act 1991, starting with watering a garden, cleaning a private motor vehicle, watering plants on domestic or other non-commercial premises, cleaning a private leisure boat and running through pools, ponds, fountains, walls, windows, paths and patios. Anything outside those eleven is untouched.
A watering can, a bucket and water you have collected yourself are never restricted by a Temporary Use Ban. Neither is water that never came through the mains: a hosepipe fed from a butt, a borehole or grey water sits outside the notice, because it attaches to the water rather than to the hosepipe.
Each company then publishes its own concessions, and they differ enough that one list is no guide to another. These 5 are Anglian Water's:
More: what you can still do, newly laid turf, drip irrigation, business and trade rules.
Breaching a Temporary Use Ban is a criminal offence, not a civil matter. The maximum is level 3 on the standard scale, currently £1,000, under section 76(5) of the Water Industry Act 1991. It is not a fixed penalty: Anglian Water cannot issue one and would have to prosecute. In practice companies publish an enforcement policy that starts with a warning, so a first breach realistically produces a letter.
Anglian Water publishes a Temporary Use Ban enforcement policy as a separate document from the statutory notice, and a dedicated exceptions page. Customers who cannot safely use a watering can or bucket because of a health condition, disability or additional support need may be covered by an exception, as may Priority Services Register customers.
More: fines and enforcement in detail.
Source: Anglian Water
This is Anglian Water's first hosepipe restriction since 2012, a fourteen-year gap. The exclusion of Hartlepool is the part worth understanding, because it explains the shape of the notice: Hartlepool sits in its own water resource zone, so the pressures behind this restriction do not reach it.
Recorded here this season for Anglian Water: a restriction beginning 11 July 2026, running 67 days so far. Events are permanent. When one ends we set its end date and keep it, so this page can still say what ran and for how long.
Source: Anglian Water
Yes. Anglian Water has a Temporary Use Ban in force, in effect since 11 July 2026. Whole supply area except Hartlepool
No end date is announced: it runs until further notice. Companies lift restrictions after sustained rain, not on a fixed date.
Not with a hosepipe, sprinkler or pressure washer fed from the mains. A can or bucket is fine, as is a hosepipe fed from a butt or borehole. Commercial car washes are unrestricted.
Up to 1,000 pounds, imposed by a magistrates' court on conviction under section 76 of the Water Industry Act 1991. It is not a fixed penalty: Anglian Water would have to prosecute, and starts with a warning.
Usually, but not automatically everywhere. Most companies exempt Priority Services Register customers and Blue Badge holders who cannot reasonably use a can or bucket, some automatically and some on registration. Anglian Water's own notice sets the wording.
Your water bill, on the water supply line rather than the sewerage line: in much of England and Wales those are two different companies. Anglian Water supplies the anglian water supply area across the east of england, with hartlepool explicitly excluded.
No: whole supply area except hartlepool. Being a Anglian Water customer is not the same as being inside the restriction, so check the coverage section above or your postcode.
No. Anglian Water's notice explicitly excludes Hartlepool. Your water comes from Hartlepool Water, which has its own water resource zone.
The supply area covers Norfolk, Suffolk, Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire and part of Nottinghamshire, plus Hartlepool through a separate company and a separate resource zone.
13 outward postcode districts resolve to Anglian Water here, as primary supplier or as one candidate among several. An outward code is the part before the space: SO14, not SO14 3AB.
Town pages here: Norwich, Ipswich, Colchester, Chelmsford, Peterborough, Northampton and 1 more. Each resolves from its own outcode rather than this company's headline status, which matters most where a town sits outside a restriction its supplier has declared.
Source: Anglian Water
Anglian Water publishes water quality data openly but does not include a hardness determinand in any edition. We have asked them for it in writing. In the meantime their own customer pages are the place to check.
Source of record: Anglian Water’s own status page, last checked 16 September 2026; the company's page is dated 17 July 2026. We do not publish a hosepipe ban on the strength of a news report; every status rests on a primary source.