The ban will begin on August 12, with an end date yet to be decided. It comes just days after Southern Water announced its first hose ban of the year for customers in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. The ban starts on Friday. South East Water said its ban was necessary to ensure there was enough water for essential use and to protect the environment, adding that the ban would reduce the amount of water taken from “already stressed local water sources”. He said: “This has been a period of extreme weather across the UK. “Official figures show this is the driest July on record since 1935 and the period between November 2021 and July 2022 was the driest eight-month period since 1976. “During July in the South East we have seen just 8% of the average rainfall for the month and the long-term forecast for August and September is for similar weather.” He added: “The demand for water this summer has broken all previous records, including the heatwave of the COVID lockdown. Subscribe to the Daily Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify and Spreaker “We produced an extra 120 million liters of water a day to supply our customers, which is equivalent to supplying four other towns the size of Maidstone or Eastbourne each day.” South East Water supplies 520 million liters of water daily to 2.2 million customers. Water is drawn from more than 250 boreholes, six rivers and six reservoirs. The company’s website said all customers in Kent and Sussex would be affected by the ban, except those on the priority service register. Read more: England experiences driest July for more than a century, UK driest since 1984 Where does our water come from, where do we use it most and what happens during a drought? Customers in Berkshire and Hampshire will not be affected, it said, adding: “While demand in our supply areas in Berkshire and Hampshire has also increased significantly, we have not suffered the same water supply problems as in Kent and Sussex. “For now, we are able to continue to ask our customers to implement a voluntary restriction on the amount of water they use at home. “We continue to monitor the situation and will notify customers if conditions change.” The ban means that the use of hoses connected to a water supply network, including garden sprinklers, is prohibited. Breaking the rules can result in a fine of up to £1,000. Shuja Khan, chief executive of data company Arqiva, said having a smart water meter can help people control their usage. He said: “Most people have no idea how much water they use every day because it can be very difficult to capture. “For example, for every 10 minutes of use, the average pipe consumes 170 liters of water, or almost 19 flushes of a toilet in the same period of time. “If people knew that just one hour of using hoses was equivalent to the same amount of water used by the average family of four over two days, they might rethink their gardening patterns.”