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Wessex Water has a Temporary Use Ban, the legal name for a hosepipe ban, in force since 18 August 2026, with no end date announced, so it runs until further notice. The entire Wessex Water water-supply area: Bath, Somerset, Dorset and Wiltshire, with parts of Gloucestershire and Hampshire. Wessex Water supplies 1.4 million people in total. A watering can, a bucket and water you have collected yourself are never restricted by a Temporary Use Ban.
Wessex Water's first hosepipe ban in 50 years, in force from 00:01 on Tuesday 18 August 2026. Read by hand on 17 August from the company's own notice page, dated 'Updated: 17 August 2026': 'The hosepipe ban starts on Tuesday 18 August at 00:01hrs.' It covers 'all customers in our region who we supply with water', so this is whole-area with no exclusions; the counties named in press coverage describe the supply area rather than narrowing the ban. Wessex Water's pages 403 automated requests, so this was confirmed by hand in a browser.
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 Wessex Water’s own notice is the version that legally applies to you.
Wessex Water supplies water to about 1.4 million people across Bath, Somerset, Dorset and Wiltshire, with parts of Gloucestershire and Hampshire. It takes sewerage from about 2.8 million, over a wider footprint, so a Wessex Water sewerage bill does not make it your water supplier.
Its water footprint interlocks with two others: Bristol Water supplies the city of Bristol itself, and South West Water the peninsula to the west. A BA, BS, DT, SP or TA postcode can belong to any of the three, so check the postcode rather than the county.
More: Wessex Water's statutory notice.
Source: Wessex Water
Wessex Water publishes a dated water resources position, and it moved hard over the summer. Its update for the week of 10 August 2026 records 2.24mm of rainfall in July, 4 per cent of the monthly long-term average. Surface reservoir storage stood at 51 per cent of capacity, below average for the time of year, and groundwater below average too.
Demand is the other half, and the company puts it first: record levels of water demand, sustained through the summer and well above normal, with no significant rain forecast. Its director of water supply had warned on 11 August 2026 that restrictions would follow if demand did not fall.
Source: Wessex 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 Wessex 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: Wessex 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 Wessex Water region had gone 50 years without a water-use restriction before 2026, a gap the company states on its own notice and one that outlasted the 2022 drought that restricted neighbouring South West Water territory. Its mixed system of groundwater, surface reservoirs and river abstraction with active stream support spreads the load rather than leaning on reservoir storage alone.
Recorded here this season for Wessex Water: a voluntary appeal from 11 August 2026 to 17 August 2026, 6 days; a restriction beginning 18 August 2026, running 29 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: Wessex Water
Yes. Wessex Water has a Temporary Use Ban in force, in effect since 18 August 2026. The entire Wessex Water water-supply area: Bath, Somerset, Dorset and Wiltshire, with parts of Gloucestershire and Hampshire.
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: Wessex 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. Wessex 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. Wessex Water supplies the entire wessex water water-supply area: bath, somerset, dorset and wiltshire, with parts of gloucestershire and hampshire.
Only at the western edge, which includes Lyme Regis in Dorset. Most of Somerset and Dorset is supplied by Wessex Water, so the two companies' notices cover different addresses in the same counties. Your postcode decides which applies.
Its update for the week of 10 August 2026 put surface reservoir storage at 51 per cent of capacity, below the long-term average for the time of year.
The water supply area covers Bath, Somerset, Dorset and Wiltshire with parts of Gloucestershire and Hampshire, wrapping around the separate Bristol Water area and meeting South West Water at the Devon border.
7 outward postcode districts resolve to Wessex 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: Swindon, Bath. 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: Wessex Water
Across the 79 postcode districts where Wessex Water publishes figures, hardness runs from 48.2 to 356.5 milligrams per litre as calcium carbonate, averaging 238.3. That is moderately hard on the water industry scale.
The figures come from the 2022-2025 edition of Wessex Water Domestic Water Quality 2022-2025, published 1 January 2025, with the species named in their own units column.
Wessex Water’s published data · Contains Wessex Water drinking water quality data, via Stream, licensed under CC BY 4.0. Figures are published per census area, not per postcode, so they characterise an area rather than measuring an address. Hardness is a scale and taste matter, not a safety one.
Source of record: Wessex Water’s own status page, last checked 16 September 2026; the company's page is dated 17 August 2026. We do not publish a hosepipe ban on the strength of a news report; every status rests on a primary source.