The head of a water company blamed people working from home for a new ban on water hoses.
South East Water will impose its first hose pipe ban of the summer from Monday, affecting more than two million homes and businesses across Kent and Sussex.
Its chief executive, David Hinton, said in a letter to customers that working from home after the pandemic was a “major factor” behind the ban, as it had “increased demand for drinking water”.
He wrote: “Over the past three years, the way drinking water is used across the Southeast has changed dramatically.
“The rise of working from home has increased drinking water demand in commuter cities by about 20% in a very short period, testing our existing infrastructure.”
Hinton also blamed a lack of rainfall since April for leaving the water butts empty, as well as pointing to a recent bout of hot weather which he claimed had led to a surge in demand for drinking water.
“Our reservoir and aquifer stocks of raw water, which are essential to our water supply but not ready for use, are well placed. However, the demand for treated water, which takes time to process and deliver, has been greater than we can meet.
“Over the past week we have needed to find water to supply the equivalent of four additional towns the size of Maidstone or Eastbourne per day.”
Greg Clarke, the Conservative MP for Tunbridge Wells, told The Times: “Their only job is to provide drinking water.
“But in my constituency the water has run out twice in six months – once just before Christmas when we had a bad cold, and now after a small and unexceptional heat wave.
“What they describe in terms of people working for the home is in no way limited to this field.
“There has been a tendency for some time for people to work more from home. The water company needs to be able to anticipate this and accommodate.”
A spokeswoman for water regulator Ofwat said: “South East Water must do better to forecast and manage operational issues, assist customers, and communicate with them what is happening and why.
“Customers will ask, for the second time in six months, why their water company is affected by the weather.”
South East Water’s head of service management, Steve Andrews, defended the ban, saying it was “introduced to ensure that we can provide drinking water to all of our customers consistently”.
He added, “We want to thank our customers for their interest in water usage and remind them to continue using water wisely over the coming weekend.”