The announcement of a hosepipe ban coming into force on the Isle of Wight on Friday is no surprise to Labour's Richard Quigley.

The Isle of Wight councillor has urged MP Bob Seely to join him in maintaining the pressure on Southern Water (SW) to improve its performance.

The utility company says it is working hard to reduce water waste and is continuing to make investments and changes to the way it tackles the issue.

Cllr Quigley said: “I don’t think many of us will be surprised that SW are implementing a hosepipe ban, what frustrates me is the response to the millions of litres of water lost through leaks, isn’t as rapid or definite.   

"The lack of investment in the infrastructure on the Island has led to continuous disruption to Island residents.

"This is on the back of the Environment Agency report that awarded SW one star for performance due to it’s releases of sewage into our sea. We are in danger of one company causing disruption on land and at sea.  

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"I continue to press SW to improve their performance and suggest our MP Bob Seely does the same.”

Southern Water points to a number of initiatives it is undertaking to save water.

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A spokesperson said: “We know tackling leakage is a challenge for the entire water industry.

"Our network is big and complex, and this brings many difficulties when it comes to finding and fixing leaks — but we are continuing to make investments and changes to the way we tackle this and have a target to reduce leakage by 15 per cent by 2025, 40 per cent by 2040 and 50 per cent by 2050.

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“We recently invested an additional £1.2 million since November to speed up the roll out of a new Advanced Pressure Management system on our network to reduce fatigue of the pipes which can cause bursts.

"We have also fitted 7,000 acoustic loggers which can detect and pinpoint leaks – even on deeply buried pipes – and are trialling even more advanced technology in this space.

"Furthermore, we have a mains replacement being designed to replace 15km of water network.

“Fixing leaks is only one element of being more water efficient, and we would like to thank our customers for supporting our many other initiatives to help us save this precious resource, such as school and home visits, and online advice and water usage calculators.

“We know that short term measures like Temporary Use Bans will have an impact on our customers, particularly during the school holidays, and we haven’t taken this decision lightly.

"We’re working with the Environment Agency to ensure that we act responsibly to protect our environment.”