Col. (Ret'd) Brian Fortescue-Hatch says he will not be lectured on drought management by a water company that loses a fifth of its own supply before it reaches a single tap.

By Our Environment Correspondent · 30 July 2026 · Woke Watch

A hosepipe ban announced this week across three counties has been met with fierce resistance from at least one resident, after Col. (Ret’d) Brian Fortescue-Hatch, 71, declared the restriction “the sort of thing Chamberlain would have signed” and vowed to continue watering his begonias “under cover of darkness if necessary.”

“You do not win a war by rationing the home front’s water pressure,” the Colonel said, speaking from a deckchair positioned to give a clear sight line down his garden path. His operational plan involves blackout curtains, a rota of one, and a garden hose he has taken to referring to as “the ornamental drainage feature” for the benefit of any inspector.

The ban was introduced by the regional water authority, which cited the driest spring on record and asked customers to take “shorter showers” and “reconsider non-essential water use.” The authority did not respond to questions about the 22 percent of its own supply lost annually to leaking pipes before reaching any customer at all, a figure confirmed in its own annual report.

A new analysis by the Cultural Policy Foundation, Tufton Street, found the figure “stark,” noting that the average customer under the ban is now permitted less discretionary water per week than the company’s pipe network loses in under four minutes.

Margaret Fenn, parish councillor, said she had “nothing against a hosepipe ban as such” but felt residents deserved to know whether the council’s own ornamental fountain, which has run continuously outside the village hall since 1974, counted as essential. It does, according to the council. The fountain does not have a WhatsApp group organising resistance to it. The Colonel’s road does.

By Wednesday evening, hardware shops in the area reported a small but noticeable rise in sales of watering cans, which remain unrestricted, and of blackout curtain fabric, for reasons several retailers described as “not really our business to ask about.”