I was down in St Albans visiting my son (and grandsons) over the weekend.
He asked whether there was also a hosepipe ban oop norf.
I was able to tell him that Kielder Water had had to release excess water which caused the River Tyne to rise three metres above normal . . .
Kielder Water is the largest artificial lake in the United Kingdom by capacity - 200 billion litres (44 billion imperial gallons).
Kielder Water is also the site of England's largest hydro electric plant.
This gives the reservoir a total generating capacity of 12 MW, and an average production of 20,000 MWh of electricity per year.
From:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kielder_Water