A WATER company which loses 677 million litres every day through leaky pipes has told Oxford residents to stop wasting so much.

Thames Water has this month launched a massive advertising campaign urging people in the city to treat water like a 'precious resource'.

Posters plastered to bus stops and billboards around Oxford show washing machines and showers being used with sand, honey and orange juice instead of water.

The company says its 'powerful' campaign, which follows a similar effort last year, aims to show 'there’s no substitute for the precious resource'.

Efficiency manager Andrew Tucker said: "Our last campaign in Oxford was really well received, but there is a lot more we can all do to help conserve water.

"People don’t normally think water is scarce in the UK, some days all it seems to do is rain, but the truth is we get about half as much rainfall as Sydney and with an ever-increasing population, we really do need to make the most of what we get.

"It really is a precious resource, and we’d love for as many people as possible to install our free water-saving gadgets."

As part of its ongoing struggle to stop wastage the company is offering free water-saving shower heads which it says could 'save a family up to £90 a month'.

More than 90,000 leaflets will also be delivered to households to raise awareness of water efficiency and adverts are being placed with newspaper and radio stations.

The firm also said it will be carrying out 'smarter home' visits in Oxford and Abingdon, showing residents how 'small changes or quick repairs to dripping taps or leaky loos can save hundreds of litres of water every day'.

The plea to help save water might not go down well with everyone in the Abingdon area, where some have been campaigning against Thames Water's plans to build an enormous new reservoir for decades.

As part of its efforts to help deal with an under-supply problem, the company wants to build an above-ground reservoir the size of Heathrow Airport on land between Abingdon, East Hanney and Steventon.

Thames Water says that Oxfordshire is classed as 'seriously water stressed' by the Environment Agency, meaning 'there needs to be a proactive plan to help conserve water in the area to ensure there’s enough to meet growing demand'.

The company is running a number of initiatives to reduce leakage on the city’s hundreds of kilometres of pipes, including using listening devices to detect water escaping.

Two years ago the firm committed £145m to relining and replacing pipes between 2015 and 2020, but after it became apparent that was nowhere near enough it increased the figure by £97m.