Your neighbour’s hosing his garden – will you grass him up?

Perhaps it would be better to set a good example and try to avoid conflict between neighbours.

I would like to see everyone on a water meter if they live in an area that is regularly affected by hosepipe bans. Each household should be entitled to a certain amount of water at a cheap rate (depending on the number of occupants) and use above this should be charged at a higher rate. Most would pay less but those who consume large amounts of water (by using hoses, sprinklers or for any other reason) would pay more. I believe this would make everyone more conscious of water use and help avoid the need for restrictions.

I’ve rain everyday and on more than one occasion more than one per day since the hose pipe ban, so I doubt anyone in southern England will need to use a hose pipe.

And anyone who is a keen gardener must surely have a water butt by now, otherwise they can’t be that keen.

Maybe I should get a water butt and offer to sell the water back to the water companies or my keen gardener neighbours?

“How will the hosepipe ban affect you and will you comply? Would you dob
on your neighbour if you saw them generously watering their garden with a
hose?”

Yes, of course but shall do no such thing as reporting my neighbour
but I bet a passer-by sooner or later wd report such transgression.

Not on the water-meter thing but those who live overseas
where metering is compulsory and water is relatively expensive, say
turning on water-flow at sufficiently low/very low pressure wd prevent
a registering of water supply/usage hence reduce water bill but needs
a water butt or two to collect the accumulated drips and drips of water
and all for free.

Wonder if this is the case here as to such practice as to water metering.

If water companies want to encourage reporting of
transgressions, they wd indubitably have issued a freephone
hotline that thankfully they haven’t. Remember they need our
goodwill to see things through.

These companies are for-profit outfits with sole shareholder concerns
and shd have invested in schemes years ago to prevent a shortfall of water
that can reasonably be anticipated in drier parts of England and a hosepipe
ban makes things that little bit harder for keen gardeners for one.

£1000 fine for every leak reported to the water board’s and not fixed within 7 days [taken from shareholders dividends, not increased prices], sounds good to me.

Oh I have misunderstood this article [I must be a politician], its about the consumer who pays for the whole sorry messed up water industry being threatened again, because the water suppliers cannot get a national distribution grid up and running on this tiny water soaked Island of ours.

Will I report my neighbour? of course not as he has set his sprinkler up to cover my garden as well, so I get all the benefit and take none of the risk, [told you I must be a politician].

My neighbour always ignores hosepipe bans, he even uses a sprinkler on his grass without paying any extra and, of course, he won’t install a meter. I’ve lived next door to him for 35 years so “grassing him up” is not something I could possibly do. I have an 800 litre stock of rain water in water barrels which I use for watering the garden, I have a stirrup pump for washing the car and I have never watered the lawn regardless as I think it makes the grass less hardy. We need compulsory metering asap and rates based water charges should be hiked to encourage people to get meters. We lived in Europe 40 years ago and everyone there had a water meter even then – are we bonkers?

A fine “British” attitude, to be commended!

Hosepipe ban – good call – it works!!! Must be the wettest drought on record!
As soon as the hosepipe ban was announced I set up an irrigation system in our garden with a soaker hose [fitted with a pressure reduction valve and a timer, of course, in order to comply with the ban exemptions]. I haven’t been able to test it in action yet because it has been raining every day.