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Essex & Suffolk Water has a Temporary Use Ban, the legal name for a hosepipe ban, in force since 3 August 2026, with no end date announced, so it runs until further notice. The entire Essex & Suffolk Water supply area, around 2 million customers. Essex & Suffolk Water supplies 2 million people in total. A watering can, a bucket and water you have collected yourself are never restricted by a Temporary Use Ban.
Essex & Suffolk Water's first Temporary Use Ban since 1997, in force from 00:01 on 3 August 2026 across the whole supply area. Confirmed from the company's own homepage banner: 'We are introducing a Temporary Use Ban, also known as a hosepipe ban, across our supply area.'
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 Essex & Suffolk Water’s own notice is the version that legally applies to you.
Essex & Suffolk Water supplies 2 million people across Essex, Suffolk and part of Norfolk, and it is the company most often mistaken for Anglian Water. The two overlap across the CO, IP, NR and SS postcode districts, they are entirely separate companies, and they do not always have the same status. Anglian Water declared a statutory restriction in July 2026; a household a street away, billed by Essex & Suffolk Water, is under this company's position instead.
Ownership adds a second layer. Essex & Suffolk Water is part of the Northumbrian Water group, whose own supply area is 250 miles north in the North East, and group-level coverage tends to conflate the two. Neither relationship changes the test: the name on the water supply line of your bill decides which notice reaches your tap.
Source: Essex & Suffolk Water
Essex & Suffolk Water publishes a dry weather update on its own homepage, which is where its current position is stated, and it asks customers to help protect supplies by using water wisely. That is an appeal, and this site treats an appeal as exactly that: a request with no legal force, distinct from the statutory instrument its neighbour has used.
The threshold for anything stronger is the statutory one that applies to every company in England: a restriction under section 76 of the Water Industry Act 1991, which lists the prohibited uses at s.76(2). A company can impose one without the regulator's permission, which is why an appeal can become a restriction quickly.
Source: Essex & Suffolk 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 Essex & Suffolk 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: Essex & Suffolk 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.
The instructive history for this area is its neighbour's: Anglian Water went fourteen years, from 2012 to 2026, without a hosepipe restriction across a supply area that surrounds this one, so the East of England's dry climate has not translated into frequent restrictions. What is recorded for Essex & Suffolk Water this season is an appeal, and the gap between those instruments is the gap between a request and an offence.
Recorded here this season for Essex & Suffolk Water: a voluntary appeal from 1 July 2026 to 3 August 2026, 33 days; a restriction beginning 3 August 2026, running 44 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: Essex & Suffolk Water
Yes. Essex & Suffolk Water has a Temporary Use Ban in force, in effect since 3 August 2026. The entire Essex & Suffolk Water supply area, around 2 million customers.
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: Essex & Suffolk 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. Essex & Suffolk 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. Essex & Suffolk Water supplies the entire essex & suffolk water supply area, around 2 million customers.
Only if Anglian Water supplies your water. Essex & Suffolk Water and Anglian Water both operate across the CO, IP, NR and SS districts as separate companies with separate positions. Anglian Water's notice applies to Anglian Water customers. Check the water supply line of your bill, not your postcode.
The supply area does not follow the county names on the bill. Essex & Suffolk Water and Anglian Water both operate across the CO, IP, NR and SS districts as separate companies with separate positions, so a postcode there can resolve to either. The water supply line of your bill decides which notice applies, not the county.
6 outward postcode districts resolve to Essex & Suffolk Water here, as primary supplier or as one candidate among several. An outward code is the part before the space: SO14, not SO14 3AB.
Source: Essex & Suffolk Water
Essex & Suffolk Water does not publish drinking water quality data on the water industry's open data platform, so there is no hardness figure to read. We have asked them for it in writing. In the meantime their own customer pages are the place to check.
Source of record: Essex & Suffolk 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.