Reservoir goes from nearly empty to full

A reservoir which was nearly empty at the end of the summer is now full, a water company has said.

Long spells of warm and dry weather combined with record demand left Ardingly Reservoir with just six weeks' worth of water, South East Water (SEW) said in September.

It came after a temporary hosepipe and sprinkler ban was put in place for more than 1.4 million residents across Kent and parts of Sussex in July.

The company has confirmed that the West Sussex reservoir is now full and has said a meeting will take place to review the hosepipe ban, within days, at the end of January.

A spokeswoman told the BBC groundwater sources also had to be taken into account.

"So far, we've had a reasonably average rainfall across the winter period," the SEW spokeswoman said.

But she added: "We're still only halfway through the groundwater replenish season, so we are continuing to monitor."

Environment Agency data had shown the Ouse catchment, where the Ardingly Reservoir sits, had 102% of the long-term average rainfall from October to December, which helped the reservoir start to recover.

"A dry end to the winter and a dry spring could still cause problems later in the summer if groundwater doesn't fully recover, and so we're monitoring that as part of our drought management," the spokeswoman said.

The Environment Agency update this month, based on data from December, confirmed reservoir stocks had risen across the South East.

Ardingly Reservoir supplies drinking water for tens of thousands of residents in the Haywards Heath area.

The reservoir, surrounded by ancient woodland, was built in the early 1970s. It can hold 4,773 million litres of water – equivalent to approximately 1,880 Olympic-sized swimming pools, according to the South East Water website.

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