Why should households face a hosepipe ban while water companies waste gallons every day? writes Shelagh Fogarty

It boils hotter than the weather has been in this country over the past couple of weeks. And that is saying something.

A hosepipe ban, on its own, might sound sensible enough. We’ve had hot weather and little meaningful rain. Of course, we all understand that water is precious and that in dry spells we need to be careful. Most people are not unreasonable. Most people will do their bit. But what sends people over the edge is being told to conserve water while they can actually see it pouring away down their street.

I live on a hill, and for several months of the year there is effectively a stream running down the road. Not in a poetic, picturesque sense. Not some charming little brook. A stream caused by broken pipes and leaks. You leave the house in the morning, there it is. You come home in the evening, there it still is, babbling away as if this is the most normal thing in the world.

And then, every now and again, the problem gets much worse. Twice already this year, or something very like it, the roads at the top of the hill have become impassable because water has burst up from underground so violently that what used to be a road looks more like a river. Parents with young children trying to get to school can barely get across it. It is too deep, too risky, too absurd.

That’s the word I keep coming back to: absurd.

Because I would put money on the fact that a hosepipe ban is coming where I live. If anyone from Thames Water would like to ring me and say, “No, Shelagh, it isn’t,” I would be delighted to hear from them. Truly. But with no meaningful rain on the horizon, and with the usual warnings already beginning elsewhere, it feels inevitable.

And this is what so many people find so enraging. The public is always the first to be told to behave differently. Have shorter showers. Don’t water the garden. Don’t wash the car. Don’t fill the paddling pool. Again, fine. But what exactly are customers supposed to make of that when the infrastructure is visibly falling apart around them?

One person reacting to the latest restrictions put it more bluntly than I have: “A hosepipe ban is crazy while pipes are leaking.”

This is not just about my road, or Thames Water, or one bad summer. It speaks to something bigger, and I don’t say this with any pleasure. I don’t enjoy doing down my own country. But just look around. Look at the things we are apparently expected to tolerate now, the things we are meant to sigh about, roll our eyes at, and carry on with.

We can run Wimbledon beautifully. And we do. It’s fabulous. Every player says so. It looks immaculate, it feels perfectly timed, everything works. Great. I’m not knocking Wimbledon, I love it. I’m just asking: is there anything else we still run properly?

Because we certainly do not run our water supply properly.

We are surrounded by water. We are full of rivers and lakes. And yet every summer we seem to lurch towards the same argument: too little storage, not enough reservoirs, too many leaks, too little long-term planning, and too much pressure put back on the customer to make up the difference.

What is the long-term solution?

Because there has to be one. Not another short-term plea to the public, not another summer of restrictions while water runs down roads and across pavements, but something more fundamental: fixing leaks, upgrading infrastructure, improving storage, and making sure the system is fit for the climate we now live in.

That will cost money. Of course it will. But so does failure. And at some point we have to decide whether we are serious about basic public utilities or whether we are content to muddle through, one burst pipe and one hosepipe ban at a time.

People will save water if they are asked. But they are entitled to ask something back: when are the companies going to stop wasting it?

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Listen to Shelagh Fogarty from 1-4pm Monday to Friday on the LBC app.

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