Pembrokeshire’s hosepipe ban has officially been lifted after the warmest and driest summer since 1976.

The ban lift was announced today (Tuesday) and has immediate effect.

But Welsh Water is reminding its three million customers that it’s still important to continue to avoid wasting water enabling its 91 reservoirs to refill fully over the winter months.

Water levels at just about all of the company’s reservoirs, including Llys y Fran, fell significantly as it kept the water flowing to its three million customers.

Added to this, the company had to treat record amounts of water during the peak of the hot weather – with over 1 billion litres a day being treated at times compared to the normal 850 million litres per day.

While rain is now falling and helping the reservoirs, it still isn’t heavy enough or lasting long enough to have a significant effect on levels. This is particularly true of reservoirs in the south east of Wales where levels are continuing to drop.

With no significant rain in the forecast, reservoirs need a bit of extra help to make sure they refill ready for next summer. This is particularly important with the effects of climate change being reported as being linked to increasing the likelihood of droughts in future.

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Ian Christie, Managing Director of Water Services, said: “We’re pleased that we’re able to lift the hosepipe ban for our customers served by the Llys-y-Frân reservoir and we really do thank them for their full co-operation which helped ensure we kept the water flowing to our customers throughout the summer,” said Ian Christie, managing director of Water Services.

“While this is good news, we’re not out of the woods yet. Our reservoirs are dependent on rain to refill over the autumn and winter and over the past six months, Wales has had one of the longest and driest periods on record.”

Ian Christie went on to say that September saw only 50 per cent of the long term average rainfall while the forecast is for a drier than average autumn, with only limited rain expected in the immediate future is a concern.

“While we always ask customers not to waste water, we’re encouraging all customers to only use what they need over the autumn and winter to help ensure our reservoirs refill as quickly as possible and that there is sufficient water for all our customers next summer.

“We will also play our part by continuing to work as hard as possible on finding and fixing leaks and investing in the network to make it as efficient as possible”.