Mansfield residents urged to cut down on water to help raise millions for charity

Severn Trent has committed to give £1million to charities on the frontline of the Covid-19 response for every 150 million-litres reduction in water demand, on an average daily basis, over the period to the end of June.

That means a 300 million litre reduction would earn £2million, and so on.

The challenge has been launched after daily demand for water rocketed in recent weeks to more than two billion litres across the country thanks to the hot weather.

Liv Garfield, chief executive of Severn Trent, said: “We know it’s hot, and people need to use more water than normal, but over the last few weeks we’ve seen demand spike, increasing hundreds of millions of litres every day above normal.”

It is thought the huge increase in recent weeks is because people are using the likes of sprinklers and pressure washers.

Liv added: “We’re flat out treating loads of extra water for everyone, and we’re happy to do that, but we wanted to encourage everyone to reduce their water consumption just a little bit and we’ll then donate the money we would’ve spent producing more water to the local charities which are doing such a wonderful job during the coronavirus crisis.

“We think it’s a fab idea and we hope our customers feel the same way and pick up the challenge.”