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Cambridge Water has a Temporary Use Ban, the legal name for a hosepipe ban, in force since 17 July 2026, with no end date announced, so it runs until further notice. The Cambridge Water supply area: Cambridgeshire with parts of Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire, about 350,000 households. Cambridge Water supplies 350,000 people in total. A watering can, a bucket and water you have collected yourself are never restricted by a Temporary Use Ban.
Cambridge Water is part of the South Staffs Water group but supplies a separate region. The South Staffs supply area is NOT covered by this ban. Cambridge Water's supply area is defined by civil parishes and water quality zones, not by postcode, so no CB or PE postcode can be assigned to it with certainty.
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 Cambridge Water’s own notice is the version that legally applies to you.
Cambridge Water supplies about 350,000 people in Cambridgeshire with parts of Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire, and its restriction covers all of it. The test the company gives is billing rather than geography: if your household is billed by Cambridge Water for your water services, the notice applies to you.
That phrasing is deliberate, because this supply area cannot be described by postcode: it is bounded by civil parish and water quality zone, so a postcode check here has to name both Cambridge Water and Anglian Water rather than pick one.
Source: Cambridge Water
Cambridge Water announced the restriction on 9 July 2026 and made it enforceable from 1am on Friday 17 July. It cited one of the driest springs in recent years followed by exceptionally warm weather through June, which cut river flows and groundwater reserves, and a 30 per cent rise in water use for gardening, car washing and pool filling, which it put at the equivalent of an extra 300,000 baths every day.
The stated purpose is as much environmental as operational: Cambridge Water framed the restriction as protecting both supplies and local chalk streams, which are fed by the same aquifer it abstracts from, and expects it to cut demand by around 5 per cent, or five million litres a day.
Source: Cambridge 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 4 are Cambridge 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: Cambridge 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.
Cambridge Water publishes its statutory notice as a standalone document, along with separate FAQ sets for household and non-household customers and a large-print version. Its exemptions cover customers with serious medical conditions or disabilities, households on the Priority Services Register, and businesses where hosepipe use is essential to operations.
More: fines and enforcement in detail.
Source: Cambridge Water
This is the first temporary hosepipe restriction Cambridge Water has introduced in more than thirty years: it dates the last one to the UK drought of 1995. That means there is no recent local precedent to reason from, and the 1995 restriction predates the current statutory framework, which arrived with the Water Use (Temporary Bans) Order 2010.
Recorded here this season for Cambridge Water: a restriction beginning 17 July 2026, running 61 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: Cambridge Water
Yes. Cambridge Water has a Temporary Use Ban in force, in effect since 17 July 2026. The Cambridge Water supply area: Cambridgeshire with parts of Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire, about 350,000 households.
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: Cambridge 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. Cambridge 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. Cambridge Water supplies the cambridge water supply area: cambridgeshire with parts of bedfordshire and hertfordshire, about 350,000 households.
Not necessarily. Cambridge Water's area is defined by civil parishes and water quality zones, and Anglian Water supplies much of the same CB and PE territory under a separate notice. Your bill is the reliable test.
No. They are one group with two separate supply regions and separate water resources. The Cambridge notice covers the Cambridge region only.
The supply area centres on Cambridge and reaches into south Cambridgeshire, north Hertfordshire and east Bedfordshire, bounded by parish and water quality zone rather than by postcode district, with Anglian Water supplying much of the surrounding area.
2 outward postcode districts resolve to Cambridge 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: Cambridge. 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: Cambridge Water
Cambridge 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: Cambridge Water’s own status page, last checked 16 September 2026. We do not publish a hosepipe ban on the strength of a news report; every status rests on a primary source.