YOU could be forgiven for forgetting there is a hosepipe ban in Oxfordshire as heavy downpours spread across the county yesterday.

Tourists in Oxford huddled under umbrellas in Radcliffe Square and a blocked drain caused a large puddle in Becket Street, near the railway station, despite much of southern England officially experiencing a drought.

A hosepipe ban affecting about 20 million customers was introduced earlier this month by seven water companies, including Thames Water, whose spokesman Natalie Slater said: “While the rain will certainly help, it will not resolve anything in the short term.

“We have had one of the driest two-year periods on record, so although the rain is very welcome, we need a lot more of it to get the water levels to where we would expect them to be.”

The downpours failed to make any mark on the village pond in West Hagbourne, near Didcot, which the Oxford Mail reported yesterday has dried up completely.

Parish councillor Valerie Brownsword said: “This rain won’t have made any difference. We need weeks of rainfall to bring the water table up, so unfortunately a few days of rain won’t have done anything.”