An emergency drought order should be introduced in Oxfordshire now because water supplies are already at serious risk, according to the Environment Agency.

The agency is calling on Thames Water to ban all non-essential use of water as the county faces one of the most serious droughts of the past 100 years.

It wants action sooner rather than later as rainfall continues to be worryingly low.

Consumption has only dropped by two per cent since the company introduced a hosepipe ban on April 3.

David King, director of water management at the Environment Agency, said: "Despite some reservoirs being close to full, more than 70 per cent of the public water supply in the South East comes from groundwater where, in some areas, levels are the lowest on record.

"Over the past 18 months rainfall has been much lower than during the 1974-6 drought."

Mr King said Thames Water needed to step up action to reduce demand for water and apply for a drought order immediately as any further delay would increase the risk of extreme measures being introduced later in the year.

But Thames Water insisted it would not be taking action - yet.

Spokesman Andrew Boyd said: "There is certainly a real possibility that we will need to apply for a drought order, simply because we have not seen the significant increase in rainfall for which we had hoped.

"We hear what the Environment Agency is saying, but we are not yet at the point at which we need to apply for a drought order.

"That's not to say we won't have to in the future."

A drought order could spell real problems for sports grounds, parks and businesses, which would be banned from non-essential water use.

Jim Warland, secretary of the bowls club at Rover's sports and social club in Cowley, said: "We know we would be very limited with our water usage. It would be difficult.

"For every week we don't have rain, we usually need to water the green once."

Last month, Oxfordshire received less than two-thirds of the rainfall it needed.

* Yesterday Sutton and East Surrey Water was granted a drought order - the first to be imposed in England and Wales for 10 years.