Water boss who warned of water wasting ban has 40ft pool at his £3million home

Wessex Water boss, who has warned of a ban on ‘non-essential’ water use, has a 40ft pool in his £3million home.

Colin Skellett, 77, makes £1 million a year running a water company that loses 70 million liters of water a day due to infrastructure failure.

As it struggles to stop the leaks, it tells customers to keep an eye on their usage — even with pool advice.

In a ‘water-saving’ section of the website it says: ‘Did you know? An average sized wading pool needs about 200 liters to fill it. That is more than an average person consumes in a day.’

It doesn’t say how much a pool like Mr Skellett’s would take to fill. The advice adds: ‘Cover pools when not in use to reduce evaporation…and reuse wading pool water on your garden plants or lawn.

Water companies must publish drought plans to show how they will deal with the prolonged dry weather and extreme heat that the UK is now dealing with. Wessex Water recently updated theirs.

It says it will ban garden hoses and sprinklers during extended periods of dry weather, and says they should not be used on lawns, cars or swimming or paddling pools.

Married Mr Skellett, who is a grandfather, bought the house in 2007 in a village outside Bath for £1.65 million. It is thought to be worth almost double now.

Wessex Water, owned by Malaysian YTL Corporation, made a profit of £150 million until April. Skellett was paid £975,000 last year and £1.38m the year before.

Mr Skellett was acquitted in 2003, after a six-month police investigation, of taking £1m in bribes from YTL during the takeover process.