A campaign to reduce the amount of water being used across the St Albans district has won the backing of local residents.

Affinity Water has called on households to save 10 litres of water a day, the amount we use locally above the national average.

Already more than 30,000 local people have visited the campaign’s water-saving website - www.GetWaterFit.co.uk, which aims to leave one million extra litres of water in the environment - and 6,600 have pledged their support for the campaign.

St Albans MP Daisy Cooper, Cllr Chris White, district council leader and portfolio holder for climate, environment and transport, and Karen Snook, who runs the St Albans Mums Facebook group, have also given their support.

Now residents are being given the chance to join a team to collectively save water and earn money for the school of your choice, even if you don’t have a child at that school.

The website www.GetWaterFit.co.uk offers personalised challenges you can complete to rack up your ‘litres saved’, which add to your school’s team tally. To get as many as 80 litres in one go, St Albans residents can book a 15-minute Zoom consultation to obtain personalised water-saving advice. Affinity Water is also offering to send a COVID-safe plumber to fix leaky loos and dripping taps for free.

Every litre saved from a challenge completed, an online consultation or from ordering free water saving devices will be added to the local school of your choice. For every 50,000 litres a school team saves, Affinity Water will donate £1,000 to the school’s PTA.

Artist Zoe Andrews from Herts Chalk Walk has been busy raising awareness of the need to save 10 a day to protect the River Ver and its wildlife by sketching pictures across the district. Each of Zoe’s drawings include a different mammal, bird, insect or fish living around our rare chalk stream, the Ver.

Jake Rigg, director of corporate affairs and communities for Affinity Water said: “Saving water while earning money for a local school is a great way to both help hard pressed education budgets and to motivate St Albans residents to join in this creative campaign to #save10aday.

“Across the district each person uses about 150 litres a day, 10 litres more than the UK average – and that’s exactly what we’re asking you to save. We don’t know exactly why St Albans’ use is high but we’re determined to work with our customers to reduce it. If every household joins in and installs a kit, together we’ll save a huge one million litres a day!”