A water company says it has recorded its highest level of demand on record and called on customers to reduce their usage.

Severn Trent, which supplies more than eight million people in England and Wales - including 4.8m homes and businesses in the Midlands - said demand on Saturday outstripped previous records set during the 2022 drought and Covid pandemic.

The firm reported water use was "significantly higher" than normal, with demand elevated for longer each day and into the night during recent hot weather - the second heatwave of the summer.

Over the last few days, demand was at almost 2.4 billion litres, working out as an extra 400 million litres more than usual each day, Severn Trent said.

The volume was enough to provide water to two million people, or the equivalent of 700 million pints, the company added.

The firm partially put this down to more water being used for activities including watering gardens and filling paddling pools.