HOSEPIPE bans have been lifted from many Londoners today, following months of way above average rainfall.


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London’s biggest water supplier, Thames Water, was among three major water companies to announce the end of the ban, which happily comes on a day of rare sunshine.

“We have had two-and-a-half times the average rainfall for April, we have had steady showers in May and then monsoon downpours in June,” said a spokesman for Thames Water, which supplies 8.7 million people in London and the Thames Valley.

“That’s changed things.”

Southern Water and Anglian Water – both of which pipe water to parts of outer London – also lifted bans, but customers covered by South East Water, Sutton and East Surrey Water, Veolia Water Central and Veolia Water Southeast will have to wait a bit longer to get their hoses out.

One explanation for the split between those companies scrapping the ban and those that have kept it is that some of the latter get their water from underground aquifers, which take longer to fill up than reservoirs.