A North Staffordshire reservoir has fallen to 55 per cent capacity as Severn Trent urges caution and encourage customers to use less water.

North Staffordshire is continuing to feel the effects of this summer's third heatwave, with little or no rain forecast in the coming weeks. The impact is already being seen at Tittesworth Reservoir, where water levels have fallen to 55 per cent.

In an effort to combat this Severn Trent are in the process of planning a new pipeline running from Carsington Reservoir into a water treatment site in North Staffordshire.

The company says the scheme will help secure water supplies in response to climate change and increasing demand.

Howard Perry, Severn Trent's water networks operations lead, said: "We at Severn Trent are always looking at how to make sure there is enough water for people, not just this year but in future years as well. We know we've got climate change down the line.

"What we always see with hot and dry summers is that water consumption does go up, we've got population growth as well. So all of those things mean we've got challenges to make sure there is enough water in future years."

A recent report by the Met Office describes recent trends of hotter and drier summers and for the water company this means increased demand for water.

To help meet demand, Severn Trent has replaced ageing water mains and continues to move water around its network to areas under greater pressure.

He continued: "We're always looking at what are the resource options that we can do to make sure we can move water around to make sure it's in the right place at the right time for customers and also to make sure there's enough water in the environment.

"Here at Tittesworth, it's one of our reservoirs that more quickly drains down than some of our other areas that we have got. So it's always a bit of a pressure point for us in the region and that means we have to look at long term solutions to design and plan the moving of water from over in the Derbyshire area to this one to make sure there's enough available."

As well as monitoring water supplies, Severn Trent is urging people not to enter reservoirs during the hot weather. Although outside will be hot, water at reservoirs is below 15 degrees which mean there is a risk of cold water shock

Mr Perry said: "We've got plenty of visitor sites that we love people to come and see and the water is absolutely an attraction for people to come and look at but our core message is don't get into the water.

"You can get on the water in an organised way and join clubs but it is really dangerous for someone to just come along unsupervised and get into the water to cool down.

"People get into difficulty and we just want to avoid any of those tragedies which do happen every year."

Adam Goymer who is the national water safety manager for Swim England said there are benefits to open water swimming and encourage the use of the water safety code. The four step code tells people to stop and think, stay together, float and call 999 in an emergency.

He said: "We want to encourage people to take swimming lessons and enjoy water safely. That means selecting somewhere that is managed, lifeguarded and has those procedures in place in case something was to go wrong."

Mr Perry warned over the increase in water usage, which in hot weather can increase by 20 per cent, the equivalent of two million households. He said that the water giant does lots of work behind the scenes, however consumers can help.

He said: "Customers can help to manage that by simply using water sensibly. People might not know if you use a sprinkler on your lawn that will take 1,000 litres of water an hour, which is what a normal person will use for the whole week.

"If you started to have multiple showers to keep yourself cool and those showers are 10 -20 minutes each time that's in the hundreds and thousands of litres of water.

"That adds up and creates a bit of a strain on the local network. So some simple steps are around big uses of water outside, reuse water where you can for paddling pools and just taking shorter showers and it gives the best chance for you and your neighbours getting water right through the course of the summer."