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Yorkshire Water has introduced hosepipe restrictions after the region recorded its driest spring in 132 years.
Yorkshire received just 15cm of rainfall between February and June, less than half of what is expected in an average year, pushing the region to an official drought status.
Its reservoirs are 55.8% full, which is 26.1 percentage points lower than what they would normally be at this time of year.
Dave Kaye, the director of water at Yorkshire Water, said action was necessary now to “help conserve water and protect Yorkshire’s environment”.
“That means from Friday this week, people across Yorkshire will need to stop using their hosepipes to water their gardens, wash their cars or for any other activities. Introducing these restrictions is not a decision we have taken lightly, and we’ve been doing everything we can to avoid having to put them in place,” he said.
The restrictions will come into force on 11 July. They will stop people from using a hosepipe to water gardens, wash private vehicles, fill domestic pools or clean outdoor surfaces.
People can still wash their car and water their gardens using tap water from a bucket or watering can. Businesses can use a hosepipe if it is directly related to a commercial purpose.
The supplier, which serves 5 million customers across Yorkshire and parts of north Lincolnshire and Derbyshire, is owned by Kelda Group.
Yorkshire Water paid £37.5m dividends for the six months to 30 September 2024 to its parent, up from £17.7m during the same period in 2023. The company paid £84.1m in dividends within its group structure in its latest full financial year. The dividends were not distributed to external shareholders.
Last year the chief executive and chief financial officers at Yorkshire Water were handed a combined £616,000 in bonuses for a year in which thousands of its customers were affected for weeks by a burst water pipe.
Under new powers in Labour’s Water (Special Measures) Act 2025, the regulator, Ofwat, can ban bonuses for water executives where a company fails to meet key standards on environmental and financial performance, or is convicted of a criminal offence.
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Under the rules, six water providers – including Thames Water, Southern Water, United Utilities, Wessex Water, Anglian Water and Yorkshire Water – were banned from paying “unfair” bonuses to their executives this year.
The boss of Yorkshire Water said she had decided to turn her bonus down this year, before the legislation was introduced. Nicola Shaw, who accepted a £371,000 bonus last year, said it would “not be appropriate” to accept the payment this year, acknowledging that the supplier needed to “do better” on tackling pollution.
Last month Yorkshire officially moved to drought status after a prolonged period of low rainfall. In May, north-west England also entered drought status, as reservoir levels fell to half their capacity. Much of the rest of the country is in prolonged dry status, which is the step before drought.
Consumers across England have been asked to conserve water as summer begins amid low river flows, groundwater levels and reservoir levels.
