Reservoir levels continue to recover across Cornwall and Devon, due to recent seasonal rainfall and to the proactive steps South West Water took last year to preserve water resources and enhance storage capacity.
Nevertheless, we are still seeing the impact of last year’s exceptionally dry weather, with reservoir levels now 17% lower than this time last year. While overall reservoir resources remain stable at 73% for the region, levels are much lower in Cornwall, which was particularly affected by record-high demand and dry weather last year.
Last year’s dry weather showed the pressure unpredictable weather patterns can put on water resources across the whole of the UK. It remains essential that our customers in Cornwall and Devon continue to do all they can to save water in their daily activities, to help safeguard supplies during drier weather in the forthcoming Spring and Summer months.
As such, our region remains officially in drought and a Temporary Use Ban (known as a hosepipe ban) remains in place for Cornwall and a small part of North Devon. We continue to work closely with the National Drought Group and all relevant agencies to ensure comprehensive contingency plans are in place to manage water resources throughout 2023.
We are grateful to all our customers and communities for their efforts in reducing daily water usage over recent months. South West Water continues to work around the clock to bring new supplies safely online, to find and fix more leaks than ever before and to help businesses reduce their water usage. This includes an additional investment of £45 million in new water resilience schemes to bring new water sources online.This will help ensure the resilience of water supplies this year and beyond.
We are also offering water-saving advice and devices as part of our Save Every Drop campaign.