There is no hosepipe ban in the North West, and United Utilities has said none is planned.
A United Utilities spokesperson said on 15 July 2026: "There are no plans for any restrictions in the north west, and our reservoir levels are above average for this time of year. Whatever the weather though, we always encourage our customers to use water wisely."
That covers around 7 million customers across Cumbria, Lancashire, Greater Manchester, Cheshire and Merseyside.
United Utilities publishes no Temporary Use Ban notice anywhere on its own site, which is consistent with the statement: a company with a live ban publishes the notice, because the ban is only enforceable once it does.
A note on sourcing. The 15 July statement was carried in news coverage rather than published as a page on unitedutilities.com, so this entry cites the company as the source of the statement and not a specific page. Separately, a third-party tracker briefly reported a United Utilities ban starting 5 August 2026 and has since corrected it. We are not treating that correction as the news here: the fact is what United Utilities said, and another publisher's error is not something our readers need to carry.