WATER BOSSES today spelled out a stark warning of the most parched summer ever for East Lancashire with chronic water shortages and hosepipe bans.

The situation in East Lancs is the region's worst with Hyndburn reservoir about 22 per cent full and Blackburn little better at 40 per cent.

And the North West heading towards summer in a grimmer position than last year, with reservoirs on average only just over 65 per cent full against the 95 per cent to 100 per cent expected at this time of year.

The hosepipe ban imposed last year is set to continue indefinitely, and unless the situation improves, North West Water will pull the plug again on the car wash ban it lifted only last week.

"We are asking customers to be sensible about using water,' said NWW spokeswoman Sue Wright.

She defended the decision to lift the car wash ban, saying: "Only Greater Manchester and Lancashire were affected, and we felt it was unfair for some of our customers to suffer more than others. In September we announced a £75 million programme of improvements, and the steps we have taken meant things have got a little better, so we decided not to renew the ban at this time.

"We are watching the situation closely, and we may have to ban car washing again in the summer.

"We need a period of prolonged rain, and we also need to keep demand as low as possible."

She added that since the massive improvement programme was announced in September, work had already been completed on 34 projects to ease the situation in East Lancashire and East and South Manchester.

Permanent and temporary pipes have been laid and new pumping stations built to allow the worst-hit areas to feed from the giant Hawes Water and Thirlmere Water aqueducts supplying Manchester.

The company has also upgraded treatment plants to allow abstraction of water from boreholes to provide an extra 100 million litres daily.

Miss Wright said NWW aimed to repair leaks in 3,000 kilometres of pipes per year and had speeded up the programme, as well as offering a free repair scheme for leaks on private property, but not in buildings.

But she added: "The hosepipe ban will stay in place for the foreseeable future. We are planning for drought. The message is, use water sensibly."

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