North-west hosepipe ban-2010

Archie McCluskey

 Following the driest start to a year since 1964, the government was forced to impose a hosepipe ban for all of Cumbria and most of the north-west of England, starting on the 9th of July and ending on the 19th of August, due to the ‘bubble’ of high pressure that engulfed the north of England for several months causing a drought. This restricted 7 million people from using their hosepipes or garden sprinklers in their privately owned gardens until sufficient rainfall had made up for the fall in reservoir levels supplying their particular area. This meant that the Leeds-Liverpool Canal also had to be banned from use, as the water supply was solely from the Pennines where the drought hit the hardest. No rain was spared in the east of Britain however, as they had frequent showers all through this period.

     The national average of rainfall for 2010 had been the lowest for some years, and this was concerning not only the main UK water companies, but the Met office also, who said that North-west England, who would normally have an average of 530mm of rain from January to June, had just 299mm, the driest since 1929. After the floods in Cockermouth in the north of the Lake District on the 19th-20th November last year, it was ironic that the drought would affect this same area less than a year later, where the same rivers that burst their banks in 2009 could dry up considerably at the start of 2010.