The UK is on course for its hottest summer on record, with only average conditions needed for the rest of August to beat the record set just last year, the Met Office said. A non-essential use ban has not been imposed for 20 years, with the last one granted to Sutton and East Surrey Water in May 2006. Provisional statistics from the Met Office show that the mean temperature for the summer so far, from June 1, stands at 16.48C – which is 1.88C above the 1991 to 2020 average. To equal the 16.12C in 2025, the UK’s warmest summer on record, the rest of August would only need to be 0.21C below the long-term average, and any warmer than this would establish a new record for the country, the Met Office said. And in a summer that has been marked by extreme weather, temperatures are to spike again this week.