Thames Water is introducing a hosepipe ban across Swindon, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Wiltshire.

It comes after the Environment Agency placed the Thames area into its Prolonged Dry Weather category, meaning there is a heightened risk of drought.

The Temporary Use Ban, in areas with a postcode starting with OX, GL, SN and RG4, RG8 and RG9, will come into operation at one minute past midnight on Tuesday 22 July.

Image: Pic: istock

Customers living in areas affected by the ban are asked not to use hosepipes, including for cleaning cars, watering gardens or allotments, filling paddling pools and swimming pools or cleaning windows.

But where water is central to businesses the ban doesn't apply. Garden centres and car washes, for example, are exempt.

While the ban curren

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