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We cannot confirm Portsmouth Water's current position from its own published notice, so this page asserts nothing about it. That is deliberate: a wrong all-clear here would send someone out with a hosepipe under a restriction carrying a fine of up to 1,000 pounds, and a wrong restriction would cost them a brown lawn for no reason. Check Portsmouth Water's own notice, linked below, before using a hosepipe. Everything else on this page, the supply area, the exclusions, the penalties and the history, is stable information that does not depend on today's status.
What this site last recorded, on 30 July 2026, and which is what we can no longer stand behind today: Confirmed 30 July 2026 from Portsmouth Water's own current-water-situation page: 'We currently have no restrictions in place for water use in the area.' That page's own last-updated date is 2 July 2026 (see sourceDate), so our check is current even though the company's content is weeks old. The site returns 403 to automated checks, so this was confirmed by hand.
We could not confirm Portsmouth Water’s current status from their own page, so we are not asserting a restriction. Check with your supplier before using a hosepipe.
We are an unofficial tracker, so Portsmouth Water’s own notice is the version that legally applies to you.
Portsmouth Water supplies 700,000 people across south east Hampshire and parts of West Sussex, including Portsmouth, Havant, Fareham and Chichester. It is a water-only company of about a sixth the size of the sewerage company covering the same ground, and that mismatch is the whole difficulty with this supply area.
Southern Water is the sewerage company here, and Southern Water restricted hosepipe use across Hampshire and the Isle of Wight in July 2026. Portsmouth Water is a different company with different sources and its own position. A PO postcode can be served by either for water, so news coverage of a Hampshire restriction cannot tell you whether it applies to you.
Source: Portsmouth Water
The sections on why a restriction was declared, and on what it restricts, are not shown here: with the status unconfirmed there is nothing verified to describe, and inventing it would be worse than leaving it out. Portsmouth Water's own notice is the authoritative statement of its current position.
If a Temporary Use Ban were in force here, breaching it would be a criminal offence. The maximum penalty is a fine of £1,000 on summary conviction, under section 76(5) of the Water Industry Act 1991. It is not a fixed penalty: Portsmouth 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.
Portsmouth Water has a long record of not restricting hosepipe use, including through seasons when Southern Water restricted the same counties, and the reason is the chalk: the aquifer under the South Downs holds a large volume and is slow to respond to a single dry summer. The Havant Thicket project exists because the constraint that does bite is environmental rather than volumetric, namely how much can be abstracted from chalk streams without harming them, which is the same pressure behind Southern Water's restrictions on the Test and Itchen.
Source: Portsmouth Water
We could not confirm Portsmouth Water's current status from its own notice, so this site asserts nothing either way. Check Portsmouth Water's own notice before using a hosepipe.
Because we could not confirm it against Portsmouth Water's own published notice, and this site does not assert a status it cannot stand behind. A wrong all-clear costs a reader up to 1,000 pounds; a wrong ban costs them a brown lawn. Neither is acceptable, so it says so instead.
We cannot confirm Portsmouth Water's current position, so this page will not tell you either way. A watering can or bucket is safe whatever the status, because a Temporary Use Ban never restricts them. For a hosepipe, check Portsmouth Water's own notice first.
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: Portsmouth 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. Portsmouth 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. Portsmouth Water supplies the portsmouth water supply area across south east hampshire and parts of west sussex.
Not by Southern Water's notice. It applies to the customers Southern Water supplies with drinking water in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. Portsmouth Water is a separate company with its own sources and its own position, even though Southern Water handles sewerage across the same area.
It is the first major new UK reservoir in over thirty years, planned to be filled by 2031. Portsmouth Water is building it partly to free up supplies that can be shared with Southern Water during a drought, and states an aim of reducing the chance of emergency restrictions such as standpipes to once every 500 years on average after 2039.
The supply area runs along the coast from Southampton Water east to Chichester and inland to the South Downs, covering Portsmouth, Havant, Fareham, Gosport and parts of West Sussex.
1 outward postcode district resolve to Portsmouth 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: Portsmouth. 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: Portsmouth Water
Source of record: Portsmouth Water’s own status page, last checked 30 July 2026; the company's page is dated 2 July 2026. We do not publish a hosepipe ban on the strength of a news report; every status rests on a primary source.