enviromental advice please

[ann]

bit of back ground first we live in a housing association house,
which has a front and back garden but no access to the back garden via a path or anything so everything has to go through the house,

anyway in the front garden we have a water butt in the corner thats been there over a year, it doesn't leak or flood when full as it has a shut off valve kind of thing, anyway we had some new housing officer round today, who says we are not allowed to have a water butt,
now the reason it was put there was of course to collect the water to water the flower beds, grass etc so that it saves on using the tap water or hosepipe, especially as most summers we have a hose pipe ban, if we used tap water we would have to carry it right through the house as the kitchen is at the back of the house,


it seems to me that the housing is looking for an argument really as I'm more than prepared to say with the environmental aspect surly its something that should stay.

any advice on an argument i can use please
this had made me fuming