MORE than two million people in Sussex, Surrey, Hampshire and Berkshire will be subject to a hosepipe ban from Saturday.

South East Water said today that 2.4m customers will be hit by the restrictions after the ban was expanded beyond Kent, which came into place earlier this month.

After lower than average rainfall, hot weather and high demand for water, the utility asked people not to use hosepipes for their gardens, cars, patios, boats or swimming pools.

Central and south-east England saw the longest unbroken spell of no recorded rainfall this century, Met Office figures suggest, with an average of zero rainfall measured in both regions for 14 days in a row.

The firm’s water supply director Douglas Whitfield apologised for the disruption, saying: “To safeguard our shared resource and help prevent any homes from facing a sudden loss of water, we sadly need to ask our communities to not use their hosepipes immediately.”