ALTHOUGH the hosepipe ban for most of us is over, and if you wish you can rush out into the garden and make your lawn even muddier than it is now, we’d all better get used to treating that outside tap with respect and plan our gardens accordingly.

If you don’t have a water meter now, in a few years you certainly will. Even if it rains every day for the next 10 years the water companies have, through a mixture of good lobbying, favourable (drought) weather conditions and horror stories of standpipes in every street, convinced the Government to give them the power to charge every home by the litre in the coming years despite their own wastage in industrial quantities.

Non-gardeners, single people and those that don’t bath much will apparently benefit initially with lower costs. But if, like me, you like to wallow every morning in two feet of soapy water, hose the car and lawn every weekend and refill the paddling pool when the water goes murky, it is going to cost you more.

Exactly how much more is difficult to predict as all utility companies (especially gas, electric and phones) have a complicated pricing structure designed to make it impossible for the layman to compare like with like.

For several years we’ve been seeing TV programmes on drought-resistant gardens and it’s a sensible thing to plant out as if you will never again use a hosepipe so I’m planning my little plot like the set of a spaghetti western on the assumption, promoted by the water companies, that it will never rain again. I also considered digging my own well in the back garden until someone pointed out I could make a decent income from coins thrown into it if I put it by the front gate.

For those seriously inclined to beat the meter you can have your own private borehole installed from about £8,000 but I’ve never seen one. There is a limit of 20,000 litres per day to the amount of water you are allowed to extract but this should be more than enough for even the cleanest of families.

As new homes eventually get built it is a certainty that, in addition to increased insulation, they will use “grey” or stored rainwater for washing or sewage as, when you think about it, it is a nonsense that we’ve grown used to flushing the toilet with pure drinking water.

uE06C Ron Kennor is general manager of Robinson & Jackson Estate Agents. He can be contacted on 020 8850 7788.