In article , Mike Lyle
wrote:

Stan The Man wrote:
[...]
But what really makes my blood boil is that all the evidence indicates
that hosepipe restrictions don't actually save water. Research by the
Environment Agency, the Water Research Centre, Southern Water and
others hasn't been able to prove that hosepipe bans save water. Some
of the research shows that water consumption actually goes up during a
hosepipe ban.

Well, I'd expect it to. Dry periods are when people are going to water
their gardens on top of all their normal water use. (They often don't
actually need to, of course.) I'm sure filling watering cans uses a lot
less water than walking round the garden holding a running hosepipe.

The ban in question was imposed during a hot spell. There was no
logical reason to suppose that water consumption would have been
naturally higher during the ban than it was before the ban. And people
who walk around with gushing hosepipes are irresponsible. Any decent
spray gun or nozzle fitting makes it easy to turn the water off at the
business end. A good hosegun defaults to off so that you have to
squeeze the trigger to produce water.

Other research shows that industrial users reduced their
consumption far more than domestic users despite the fact that the
industrial users weren't subject to any restrictions.

Except that they _are_ restricted in a sense: by having to pay water
bills based on metering. That seems to be one way of controlling
consumption. I imagine Sacha's business is on a meter, for example.

Indeed they are metered but they were metered before, during and after
the hosepipe restriction so it wasn't a factor in the research.
Domestic metering is a hot topic and 28% of homes in the UK now have
one fitted, according to OFWAT. Trouble is the research again shatters
the big myth. Newly metered homes do indeed reduce their water
consumption immediately by up to 10% but after the first year - and
presumably not having been shocked by their water bills - metered
properties gradually return to within 1% or so of their former,
pre-metered usage. Perhaps water needs to be more expensive for
metering to have a long-term impact on consumption.