Western Bay of Plenty on brink of water restrictions as dry summer beats on

Water use in the Western Bay is soaring and the area is on the brink of restrictions.

The Western Bay of Plenty District Council announced today that if water usage did not drop in Te Puna, Omokoroa and Minden restrictions would be in place from Saturday.

The council's utilities manager Kelvin Hill said water consumption had almost reached its peak and a decision on restrictions would be made on Friday.

Reservoirs in the area must maintain a constant 50 per cent minimum water level to meet the daily demands for drinking water.

Reservoirs in the Eastern and Western water zones were still holding their own, which Hill said was due to people's efforts to conserve. With no substantial rain in sight for the rest of this month and into early February, the district was on high alert to conserve.

"Our next step would be to ban sprinklers and introduce water restrictions for odd-numbered houses on odd days and even-numbered houses on even days."

The council will also be directly contacting its larger water consumers in the Central Zone to ask them to be more prudent on use.

Western Bay of Plenty District Council had not introduced water restrictions since 2013.