Thames Water is planning to announce a hosepipe ban “in the coming weeks”, the company has confirmed.

In the face of a rainless long term forecast and following weeks of dry weather, temporary use bans have already been announced for customers in Kent, Sussex and south Wales.

Restrictions come into effect for much of Kent when South East Water's ban becomes active on Friday, while Thames Water - which supplies customers in Dartford - has not yet confirmed a start date.

A statement for the company said: "Given the long term forecast of dry weather and another forecast of very hot temperatures coming this week we are planning to announce a temporary use ban in the coming weeks.

"We have written to the Environment Agency to update them on our approach and informed Ofwat. The timing is not confirmed due to a number of operational and legal procedural requirements but we will be updating our customers, partners, regulators and stakeholders at the earliest time to ensure a coordinated approach.

"In the meantime we continue to urge our customers to only use what they need for their essential use."

Further information in the statement added: "We have a dedicated team of analysts and scientists monitoring our water resource levels at all times.

"The team takes into consideration a number of factors including Met office forecasts, reservoir storage levels and expected customer demand. When considering implementing a Temporary Use Ban [TUB] we have to balance the impact on our customers and the environment.

"To inform our decision making we work to our Drought Plan.

“We have been preparing for summer since the winter, making good use of abstractions earlier in the year to fill our reservoirs in London. We accelerated maintenance work on the QE2 reservoir in London which has provided more storage over the past dry months.

"We then launched the first phase of our media campaign urging customers to use water efficiently, this was followed up in July with a second phase providing customers with lots of water saving tips.

“We have recently started supporting our supplies in other ways, including drawing water from our North London Aquifer Recharge System (NLARS) which means we need to take less water from our reservoirs.

"Our aim is always to ensure that we will have enough water to supply our customers, regardless of the weather."