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We cannot confirm Yorkshire 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 Yorkshire 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 14 July 2026. Yorkshire Water is at drought level 1 in its Grid resource zone, which is a trigger point inside the company's own drought plan, not a restriction on customers. Coverage describing a Yorkshire ban starting Friday 11 July is the 2025 ban, which ran from 11 July 2025 and was lifted on 10 December 2025. In 2026, 11 July fell on a Saturday.
We could not confirm Yorkshire 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 Yorkshire Water’s own notice is the version that legally applies to you.
Yorkshire Water supplies 5 million people across West, North and South Yorkshire and the East Riding, and is the water and sewerage company for essentially all of it. The supply area sits close to the historic county boundary, so unlike most of England there is little ambiguity about who supplies a Yorkshire postcode. The exception is the north west fringe, where United Utilities reaches across the Pennines.
The company runs a mixed system: upland reservoirs on the Pennines and the North York Moors, river abstractions, and the Hull chalk aquifer in the east. Those respond to weather on different timescales, which is why Yorkshire Water reports them separately, and why a restriction here has historically been driven by reservoir storage.
Source: Yorkshire 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. Yorkshire 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: Yorkshire 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.
Yorkshire has the most instructive recent record in England, because it ran a full cycle inside eighteen months. Restrictions began on 11 July 2025, after the driest spring in 132 years, and were lifted in December 2025 once reservoirs reached 91.6 per cent and the Hull aquifer 77 per cent. Storm Amy and a week of exceptional autumn rainfall, the largest weekly reservoir rise in over thirty years, did most of that.
Two dates matter for anyone reading older coverage. The 2025 restriction started on Friday 11 July 2025. In 2026, 11 July fell on a Saturday, so an article dating a Yorkshire restriction to Friday 11 July is describing last year.
Source: Yorkshire Water
We could not confirm Yorkshire Water's current status from its own notice, so this site asserts nothing either way. Check Yorkshire Water's own notice before using a hosepipe.
Because we could not confirm it against Yorkshire 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 Yorkshire 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 Yorkshire 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: Yorkshire 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. Yorkshire 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. Yorkshire Water supplies the yorkshire water supply area across the yorkshire region.
Yes, in 2025. Yorkshire Water's restrictions began on 11 July 2025 after the driest spring in 132 years and were lifted in December 2025, once reservoirs reached 91.6 per cent and the Hull aquifer 77 per cent. Coverage of that restriction is still widely indexed and is often mistaken for the current position.
No. Drought levels are stages inside the company's own drought plan, defined per water resource zone. They change what the company does, such as moving water between zones or applying for permits. A restriction on customers is a separate step further along the plan.
The supply area covers West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, most of North Yorkshire and the East Riding, including Leeds, Sheffield, Bradford, Hull and York, with United Utilities to the west.
11 outward postcode districts resolve to Yorkshire 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: Leeds, Sheffield, York, Hull. 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: Yorkshire Water
Source of record: Yorkshire Water’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.