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Severn Trent has asked customers to save water voluntarily. This is not a Temporary Use Ban: there is no legal restriction, nothing is prohibited, and there is no fine. The Severn Trent supply area across the Midlands. The appeal covers the 8 million people Severn Trent supplies. You can use a hosepipe and a sprinkler as normal, and the company is asking you to think about whether you need to.
This is a voluntary conservation appeal, not a Temporary Use Ban. There is no legal restriction and no fine. Severn Trent asked customers to avoid using mains water for garden irrigation and to switch to stored rainwater or grey water where possible. The company has not imposed a formal hosepipe ban in over 30 years.
There is no legal restriction and no fine. Severn Trent has asked customers to save water where they can.
We are an unofficial tracker, so Severn Trent’s own notice is the version that legally applies to you.
Severn Trent supplies 8 million people from the Bristol Channel to the Humber, across the West Midlands, Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire, Warwickshire, Shropshire, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire. Its appeal covers that whole area, and because it is an appeal rather than a legal notice there is no boundary question to resolve: nothing is prohibited anywhere in it, so no household needs to work out which side of a line it sits on.
The company to separate from it is Hafren Dyfrdwy, in the same group but a separate licensed company covering north east and mid Wales under a different regulator. A Severn Trent announcement does not carry into Wales. South Staffs Water also supplies a large area inside the Severn Trent sewerage footprint, and is a different company again.
Source: Severn Trent
Severn Trent asked customers to avoid mains water for garden irrigation and to switch to stored rainwater or grey water. Its own reservoir-levels update covers 66 reservoirs and puts storage at 87 per cent of capacity, though the company does not date that page, so it is a published position rather than a reading for today.
What would change it is published sequence rather than guesswork. Severn Trent's news releases record drought permits granted for the Derwent Valley reservoirs and for Foremark and Staunton Harold. A permit lets a company take more water than its licence normally allows, with the regulator's authorisation, and that sits further down a drought plan than an appeal.
Source: Severn Trent
A Temporary Use Ban restricts a narrower set of things than most people expect, and it is worth knowing which before one is ever declared. The Water Use (Temporary Bans) Order 2010 lists eleven categories, 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.
A watering can, a bucket and water you have collected yourself are never restricted by a Temporary Use Ban. Indoor use is never restricted, and neither is non-mains water. Severn Trent has asked for voluntary restraint on those same uses. Ignoring an appeal is not an offence and carries no penalty, which is the whole difference between the two instruments.
More: what you can still do, newly laid turf, drip irrigation, business and trade rules.
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: Severn Trent 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.
Severn Trent has not imposed a formal hosepipe restriction in over thirty years, and it publishes news releases confirming as much in dry summers. That record is worth reading precisely rather than loosely: it means the company has managed several droughts, including ones in which its neighbours restricted use, without reaching for its section 76 powers. It is not a promise about this summer, and an appeal is what this company does instead.
Recorded here this season for Severn Trent: a voluntary appeal beginning 7 July 2026, running 25 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: Severn Trent
No. Severn Trent has asked customers to save water voluntarily. There is no Temporary Use Ban, nothing is prohibited and there is no fine.
It could. A company can impose a Temporary Use Ban under section 76 of the Water Industry Act 1991 without the regulator's permission, so this can change within days. For Severn Trent it turns on its own drought plan.
Yes, both. No Temporary Use Ban applies in the Severn Trent area, so hosepipes, sprinklers and pressure washers are all allowed.
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: Severn Trent 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. Severn Trent'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. Severn Trent supplies the severn trent supply area across the midlands.
No. An appeal is a request. A Temporary Use Ban is made under section 76 of the Water Industry Act 1991 and creates a criminal offence; an appeal creates none.
No. Hafren Dyfrdwy is a separate licensed company in the same group, covering north east and mid Wales, regulated by Natural Resources Wales rather than the Environment Agency. It sets its own position, and Severn Trent's announcements do not extend to it.
The supply area runs across the Midlands from Gloucestershire and Shropshire through the West Midlands conurbation to Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire, and it is bounded by South Staffs Water, Anglian Water, Yorkshire Water, United Utilities and Welsh Water.
19 outward postcode districts resolve to Severn Trent 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: Birmingham, Nottingham, Leicester, Coventry, Derby, Gloucester 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: Severn Trent
Source of record: Severn Trent’s own status page, last checked 30 July 2026. We do not publish a hosepipe ban on the strength of a news report; every status rests on a primary source.