The ban was introduced on July 10 this year during the record breaking hot, dry summer – and despite a bit more rain arriving in autumn, water reserves are still lower than they should be.

Now, Anglian Water has said the Hosepipe Ban would be continuing – and warned that drought status in the region is set to last into the new year.

Laura Tuplin, programme manager for long-term drought resilience at Anglian Water, said: “We're now in October, and while summer is behind us, the impact of the hot and dry weather is still here. We’ve started to see some cooler temperatures and rainfall over recent weeks, but drought conditions don’t end overnight. It takes sustained rainfall over a longer period to replenish rivers, groundwater and reservoir levels after such a prolonged dry spell.

“We’ll need more rainfall during the winter than we’d normally expect to bring river, reservoir and groundwater levels back to where we’d need them to be. This means that we’ll need to keep the hosepipe ban in place for now.

“Our teams will continue to carefully monitor rainfall, river levels, groundwater and demand for water, and we'll only consider lifting restrictions when we're confident conditions have improved enough to do so.”

The Environment Agency announced last month that East Anglia was likely to remain in drought until spring 2027.

At the end of September, Anglian Water said that the East of England had experienced seven consecutive months of below average rainfall.

This March to September period is the driest since records began in 1899, with the region seeing just over half of its long term average rainfall.

The Met Office has said that this summer was also the hottest on record for England. The Environment Agency declared a drought for the East of England at the end of July.

This exceptional weather followed a dry 2025, when the East of England experienced its driest spring and summer since the famous drought of 1976. After two consecutive years of prolonged dry weather, river flows, reservoir and groundwater levels in the region are lower than they should be for this time of year.