Save water call to maintain normal public supply

“We’re working hard to maintain normal supplies for all but would ask that customers consider how they use water and to protect this precious resource”

Kes Juskowiak
General Manager of Customer Water Services, Scottish Water

Scottish Water is calling on people to use water as efficiently as possible in homes and gardens and help us protect resources and maintain normal supplies across the country.

With forecasts of more dry, warm weather to come, we are working to ensure our supply systems can cope with demand, which has increased during the recent dry weather, and are urging people to help save water by:

• Using water efficiently in the garden and outdoor spaces by using a watering can instead of a garden hose where possible
• taking shorter showers
• turning the tap off when brushing teeth
• using washing machines and dishwashers only when fully loaded
• and using a bucket and sponge rather than a hose to wash the car

The public water supply is resilient, and we are continuously monitoring the levels of storage throughout the country to maintain supplies, but there has been an increase in water use by customers in the past week.

As a result, the amount of water we put into the network has had to be increased by 100 million litres per day in the past few days. That’s the equivalent of 50 Olympic-sized swimming pools or 1.2 million baths each day.

We are individually using an average of 180 litres of water per person per day, which remains higher than pre-Covid levels and is higher than the rest of the UK where people use an average of 145 litres per person per day.

Average reservoir levels across Scotland are at 85% and this is 4% lower than average for this time of year and 6% lower than this time last year.
Scottish Water is working to ensure we can maintain public water supply to customers in parts of the country affected by increased peak water use and is using tankers to supplement normal water supplies in some parts of the country such as Kippen, Balfron, Gargunnock and parts of Skye.

Kes Juskowiak, Scottish Water’s General Manager of Customer Water Services, said: “The recent dry weather has seen an increase in customer use and an additional 100 million litres of water had to be distributed each day across the weekend and on Monday.

“We’re working hard to maintain normal supplies for all but would ask that customers consider how they use water and to protect this precious resource.

“We believe that a large part of the additional water use is within gardens so we would ask that customers are mindful of how much water they use in outdoor spaces such as lawns.”

He added: “Water is always worth saving, so we would ask everyone to do all they can in and around the home and garden to help us keep water flowing normally to their taps. By taking simple steps to reduce the volume used around the home and garden, we can make our country’s water go even further.”   

Scottish Water posts facts, tips and activities on social media to raise awareness about why we need to save water and more information on saving water is available at yourwateryourlife.co.uk/save