'With London in drought we need to change how we think about water'

He says water companies “are looking forward to when the rain does come because it does ease the position somewhat. But until it happens, it’s really difficult to say how long it’ll go on for.

“We would want a sustained period of rain… so we can replenish our groundwater stocks and our reservoirs, to enable us to have water in supply in our reserves for next year.”

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Liz Stephens is a professor in climate risks and resilience at the University of Reading.

She thinks it could take months to get back to normal, noting that previous hosepipe bans in parts of the South East were only lifted “towards the end of January, early February”, while “the Thames Water hosepipe ban lifted towards the end of November”.

“It really does depend on the amount of rainfall that we get. If we see a dry autumn and winter, and we don’t see that recharge of groundwater, the rise in reservoir levels, potentially we could be looking at similar restrictions next summer as well,” she says.

There is even a possibility this drought might not come to an end this year, according to Stephens.

“If we don’t get the amount of rain that’s needed, then there will be a lot of concern about the water supply going into next spring and summer as well. We probably would then expect further restrictions.