What happened to the drought?

It filled acres of column inches in the newspapers and on the net, and hours of air time on the television and radio - Britain's worst drought for almost 100 years.

The official statistics were frightening: the South East has less water per person than the desert states of Syria and Sudan, while the rest of the country has less than the whole of Europe, apart from Belgium and Cyprus.

So what happened to the drought?

We're still in it, according to the experts, and have been for nearly two years in southern England.

Since November 2004, rainfall below the long term average for 1961 to 1990 has been recorded in 18 out of 22 months.

Nearly 13 million people were banned from using a hosepipe, but they could still wash their cars or water their gardens using a bucket or a watering can.

Did the hosepipe bans work? Yes, they resulted in a 15% reduction in water usage in the areas where they were imposed, according to Water UK. There was even a 10% reduction in areas without restrictions.

So, at least the message got through and had positive effects. But we are still in a drought situation, so complacency is an issue. The fact we are still in a drought should be public knowledge so that we can still keep the measures up.