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.

Have you all gone mad ? This isn’t about ‘water police’, and heavy fines. Various water Authorities have already nade it clear that they are not going to spy, or drag people into Court, but will merely admonish them quietly. This whole ban is merely about reminding us that we should all use much less water. Frankly most of us socially-responsible types will all ‘obey’ the hosepipe ban, and would be doing what we can to use less water anyway. Fact is that even if one in four people flout the ban, the other three-quarters will put up with it. Yes, we three-quarters will all be fed up with those who flout it, but our own efforts will still help keep the water flowing for everybody.

£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.

I did my bit in ’76 when we were reduced to standpipes in the streets, expecting that the water companies would work with other agencies to develop resources to ensure this situation would not arise in the future. Yet in the eighties we had another drought situation, and householders were urged to do their bit. But where were the extra resources? In our area the local company has been talking for at least the last 40 years about creating a new reservoir, but nothing has come of it. In the meantime, thousands of new homes have been built in the south east, with hundreds more to come. Now in another drought situation, householders are once again being asked to make sacrifices, yet the difficulties are rarely attributed to the massive increase in population in this area. However, in an interview the other day regarding the new developments, and asked about water supplies for these new homes, a water authority spokesman said they were easily able to cope with the anticipated increase in demand!
I am seething. I will do my bit and no more. Ask the developers how they will supply the massive estates of new houses being built here. It’s about time the powers that be get together and plan for a sustainable future, setting a limit on how much development any one area can take if it is to provide a pleasant living environment

My mother has a pond with fish in her garden. I know she can keep it topped up with a hosepipe, but can she connect the hose to a pressure washer and clean the waterfall that feeds the pond with running water. I can’t find anything about this on the Thames Water website,