Yorkshire Water has announced a temporary restriction on the use of hosepipes as it says the county has experienced both the driest and warmest spring on record.
The Environment Agency has officially declared a drought in Yorkshire in June, with forecasters predicting a warm summer is still to come. The region only saw 15cm of rainfall between February and June, which is less than half of what is usually expected.
Yorkshire Water has supplied an additional 4.3 billion litres of water between April and June compared with a typical year. In order to protect reservoir stocks, residents will now face a hosepipe ban from July 11.
READ MORE: What you can and can’t do as Yorkshire Water introduces hosepipe ban from Friday
Yorkshire Water’s director of water, Dave Kaye, said: “We need to take action now to help conserve water and protect Yorkshire’s environment. That means from Friday this week, people across Yorkshire will need to stop using their hosepipes to water their gardens, wash their cars or for any other activities.
“Introducing these restrictions is not a decision we have taken lightly, and we’ve been doing everything we can to avoid having to put them in place.
“Our region experienced an extremely dry spring, which resulted in the region entering drought status in June. Usually, spring is a time when our groundwater sources and reservoirs continue to be topped-up by changeable weather, but this has not been the case in 2025, with our reservoir stocks falling since the last week of January.
“Of course, we have seen a few periods of changeable weather more recently, which helped slightly with the water resources picture. But these have been followed by constant high temperatures and more dry weather, which causes increased water usage.
“We’re grateful to our customers, who have been saving water where they can this year already. It is really important that we all continue to do so.”
The restrictions will come into effect on 11 July and will be in place until the region has seen significant rainfall to bring reservoirs and groundwater stocks back to where they need to be. In the short-term, leakage has been a key focus, with 100 people added to the leakage team in 2025 to find and fix leaks and burst water mains quicker. In the longer-term, Yorkshire Water is investing £406m to replace more than 1,000km of water mains around the region to reduce leaks and bursts, as well as exchanging 1.3 million smart meters to help detect leaks.
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