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Environment Correspondent
Severn Trent, Britain's second- largest water company, is expected to impose a hosepipe ban within a week, bringing the number of customers directly affected by the worsening drought to 18 million - nearly one- third of Britain's population.
Yesterday, North West Water introduced a hosepipe ban covering 7 million people. The Northern Ireland Office is also near to bringing in a ban. Graham Leftwich, a spokesman for Severn Trent, said: ''Unless there's significant rain or customers show voluntary restraint we anticipate a hosepipe ban within a week.'' The company serves 7 million people in the Midlands and Welsh borders.
The bans come as the Meteorological Office forecasts continuing hot, dry conditions until mid-September. If only a sprinkling of rain falls in the next fortnight, June, July and August could be the driest in England and Wales since records began.
The North West ban means 11 million people are covered by hosepipe or sprinkler bans in all or parts of Cornwall, Devon, East and West Sussex, Kent, Surrey, North and West Yorkshire as well as the North-west.
About 100,000 people around Torquay are having to boil drinking water because of an outbreak of cryptosporidium, which causes sickness and diarrhoea. South West Water and the local health authority are trying to determine if contaminated water is to blame.
South West and Yorkshire have applied for drought orders which would ban car-washing, watering sports grounds and parks and filling swimming pools. They and North West have also applied for permission to take extra water from rivers.
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