A water company has issued a hosepipe ban as thousands of residents enter a sixth day without water.

South East Water said demand for drinking water in Kent and Sussex has reached record levels this month and they have “no choice” but to restrict the use of hosepipes and sprinklers in both counties.

More than 2,000 residents in Crowborough, Rotherfield, Mayfield and Wadhurst have been experiencing a complete lack of water or low pressure since Sunday.

Schools and businesses have had to shut and animals have been put in danger of death by dehydration.

South East Water said the company’s facilities are currently working at full output, with every water treatment work and water source available to the company producing treated water to keep up with demand.

Despite this, it said, it is unable to return drinking water storage tanks to satisfactory levels to ensure that it is able to consistently provide clean safe drinking water for its 2.3 million customers

South East Water said despite producing an additional 120 million litres of water a day - equivalent to supplying four towns the size of Maidstone or Eastbourne – the demand for water has broken all previous records, including during the Covid lockdown heatwave periods.

David Hinton, chief executive officer of South East Water, said: “This situation has developed much more rapidly than last year.

“Understandably, we’ve seen customer demand increase in line with the hotter weather, however this has impacted our ability to keep all customers in supply at all times. Despite asking for customers help to use water for essential uses only, regrettably we’ve now been left with no choice but to introduce this temporary use ban restriction to protect customers supplies across Kent and Sussex.

“The long-term forecast for the rest of the summer is for a dry period with little rainfall, although temperatures may reduce slightly. Restricting the use of hosepipes and sprinklers to make sure we have enough water for our customers’ essential use will ensure we can serve our vulnerable customers and to protect the local environment.”

The temporary restrictions will be enforced from June 26. This will mean that customers will be prevented from using hosepipes for watering their gardens, washing cars, patios and boats and from filling swimming and paddling pools.

“We are very aware that climate change and other factors are increasing the frequency of these events and we are submitting proposals to our regulator Ofwat to solve these issues," said Mr Hinton.

“I would like to thank everyone who has already taken steps to try and reduce their overall water use but despite this demand still remains very high which is why we have taken this decision to bring in temporary use restrictions.”