Neighbour demanded proof of our hosepipe ban exemption

[HoseBan]

My NDN has just demanded to see proof that we are exempt from the local hose pipe ban !!!!

I have said to them I won’t be showing them anything as it’s private but they can report me if I want and the water company can check.

We literally have just been filling a small paddling pool daily for the dc for after school and today have a little sprinkler toy as it’s boiling.

I know some people aren’t aware that there are exemptions (eg being on priority services register or certain tariff) but I’m so shocked they demanded proof !!!

So what?

She's entitled to use it... Just because you think she shouldn't, doesn't mean she shouldn't.

You just sound jealous and like one of those fucking awful people that merrily snooped on people during lockdowns taking nite if they dared to go for more than one walk across field a day.

Because that’s what the exemptions state. It’s to make things easier for disabled, not to enable irresponsibility.

They're not more important than each other... but they're both allowed to use the hosepipe to water plants and fill paddling pools...

And everyone else is allowed to water plants and fill paddling pools etc, just not with a hosepipe 🤷🤷

Yep. We applied at our previous property and were told it wasn’t possible. When we moved the new property had a meter and we found that our water bills were half what they were on the old ‘rates’ system.

I’m probably going to get flamed for this but I’m going to say it anyway. And I’ll caveat everything I say with the fact that I am disabled myself.

I’ve worked in disability support for over twenty years and during the latter years I noticed a growing sense of entitlement among disabled people, as well as their families and other advocates - that simply because they are disabled, they have no obligation to consider the welfare or even the feelings of others - including other disabled people. I’ve watched the benefits and concessions for disabled people slowly being eroded, and eyed with cynicism, and I think it’s undeniable that there’s a link with the growing attitude of ‘ I can so I will’ . I hope the message I’ve tried to convey over the years has been more ‘just because you can, doesn’t mean you should’.

It’s OP that’s using the hosepipe to fill the paddling pool. Unless the exemption applies specifically to her, then she shouldn’t be doing it - because there is nothing stopping her from using a watering can like everyone else.

How about the poster may just be concerned that the more disabled people take the piss with the accommodations and concessions afforded to them, the more difficult those accommodations and concessions will be to access ? And it’s a fact that water companies issuing these exemptions to disabled people will ask them to exercise it only for the needs of the disabled person, and to still be mindful of the needs of others.

No-one is being irresponsible the reservoirs are 89% full. They're paying £££ for a service that's not available because greedy board members have swanned off with money which should have been invested in infrastructure.

When would you admit to being conned @ThreadGuardDog or are you a forelock tugger.

If the OP has an exemption, she can use the hosepipe to fill a paddling pool. This is absolutely fine and within the rules.

A paddling pool, being so small, is a fine thing to use some water for.

SE water were fined £22.5 million last year for pollution. That could have fixed a lot of leaks. Improved a lot of pipeline.

I think that's more to do with being subjected to the attitudes of how dare they think they're so special/you get a free car/free house/you're probably lying anyway/nothing wrong with you because you dared to leave the house /my auntie's neighbours' cats' grandparents know somebody who gets thousands a week when he's off scaling Everest in his lunchbreak from playing computer games and explores the Mariara Trench on Tuesdays when we're all at work so this proves that people claiming are all lazy shirkers who need to get a job (and probably go on a diet and start jogging whilst they're at it).

If people get that all the time then, yeah, not everybody is going to scuttle around being oh, so humble and trying to fulfil the preferred media image of the smiling Noble Cripple, eternally grateful that they're permitted to exist and maybe even be seen as nearly as good as everybody else, they're going to advocate for themselves and their children.

Nonsense.

She's probably just jealous and and a bit embarrassed she's wrong about imaginary rules she's invented.

Who cares ? The shareholders got their bonuses. Well done SE water.

This exactly. The martyrs on here are just paying for the millionaire lifestyle of a few while counting raindrops.

Long may it continue !

Trebles all round !!

This is absolutely a wind up.

I think the pp meant the exemption is because some people will find it hard to carry a watering can. Rather than use more generally anywhere.

I think there are two things here. All the stuff, both factual and what's fair about exemptions.....then there's the asshole who thinks he is the water police.

I never thought water should be privatised and I agree with you that there are problems. But I suggest you look at

• just how many decades Thames water has been attempting to get planning consent for a new reservoir and just how often they have warned that they cannot continue to supply all the new housing being put in without one

• the cost benefit analysis of fixing leaks and how much customers would have to pay for replacing all the old pipework the companies inherited to stop all leaks

• the changing weather patterns with climate change which dump far more than expected amounts of rain in short heavy bursts into systems where surface water goes straight into the same system as sewage, inherited from the Victorians, which is what most often causes sewage to be released

There is NO excuse to defy hose pipe bans, it is simply shitting on your next door neighbour when the water runs out.

How do you know it’s not the kids who are disabled? Or the family as a whole?

Deliberately goady thread 🙄

Grab some recruitment literature from the local Police Force. It sounds like a job that might interest them. Or move to Scotland. We have plenty of water up here!

You are taking the piss OP.

I’d like to go swimming on one the many beaches near me. I can’t because they are discharging sewage into our waters. But hey it’s all falling apart because I need to water 6 plant pots with a hose because I’m in pain after an operation. Maybe if they invested in reservoirs instead of selling them off we would be ok? As long as those share holders are ok that’s all I worry about personally. Oh and dying of dysentery after going for a paddle in the sea.

"Nighttime water restrictions for some areas tonight" https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2026/0711/1582859-ireland-weather/

They've been more honest in Ireland. Working round the clock to fix leaks. Unfortunately they've had to turn off all water in some areas from 6pm to 6am.