A community has been forced to queue for water in sweltering temperatures after a burst pipe left their village dry.
Hundreds of people living in South Wootton, North Wootton and Castle Rising, near King’s Lynn in west Norfolk have been without water or suffering from very low water pressure.
The lack of water has meant people have been unable to flush toilets, shower or have water for drinking while local shops reportedly sold out of bottled water.
The problems, coupled with hot temperatures, also led Reffley Academy, North Wootton Academy and South Wootton Junior and Infant School to close for the day.
The issues started when a water main burst at around 1pm on Saturday, just as temperatures hit 30°C.
South Wootton is just 31 miles away from Santon Downham in Suffolk where the mercury was recorded as hitting 36.7°C at 2.45pm today.
Images from South Wootton showed hundreds of people queueing up to get drinking water over the weekend amid welfare concerns for those more susceptible to the heat and unable to leave their homes.
People in the area quickly took to social media to complain about the situation and Anglian Water’s handling of the problem which they described as ‘abysmal’.
Anglian Water, which supplies water to the east of England, said engineers were working to fix the fault but people were still without water on Monday morning more than 36 hours after taps first ran dry.
The water supply was not restored until shortly before 1pm today, almost 48-hours after the initial fault, but customers have still been warned supply may be ‘intermittent during peak demand’.
In a statement issued on its website, the water company said it was ‘genuinely sorry’ for the burst pipe which ‘couldn’t have happened at a worse time’.
‘Our teams have worked around the clock since the incident began to get things back to normal,’ the company said.
‘Our priority has been to get water flowing back to customers’ taps, and while that took longer than we at first believed it would, changes we made to the way our pipes and pumps work mean water was flowing again by Monday morning.
‘In the background, we’ll carry on repairing the damaged pipe – but customers shouldn’t need to worry about that. Even when we reconnect it they shouldn’t see any interruption.
‘Given the hot weather, demand for water is understandably incredibly high. This means right across the whole of the country there is always the risk that at peak times, pressure may drop.
‘This is as true for the network in this area as it is anywhere else, and while the changes we’ve made to the pipes and pumps locally are robust enough to keep supplies on, we’ve kept plenty of staff on the ground to keep an eye on things and intervene if needed.
“Please accept our very sincere apologies. We always aim to fix issues like this without anyone noticing, but the complexities of this repair mean we weren’t able to do that, and for that we are genuinely sorry.’
The problems in Norfolk come as other water companies around the country have urged people to be careful with water and only use what is absolutely necessary.
Bristol Water has warned customers they may notice a drop in water pressure during peak times and that their drinking water may taste slightly different to normal.
In a statement, the company said: ‘We’re asking you to be mindful, we’re working hard in the background to try and keep everyone in water during periods of high demand.
‘During times like these we often make changes within our network of pipes.
‘We might temporarily redirect your water supply so that it comes from a different treatment works or reservoir than usual.
‘This may mean you notice your water tastes a little bit different to normal – don’t worry though, this will return to normal as temperatures start to cool down again.’
Affinity Water, which supplies Hertfordshire, Essex, Surrey and Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire and London, has also warned people they may experience low water pressure during peak times.
‘Because of the hot weather, many of us are using much more water. This means you may notice lower pressure or no water when demand is higher in your area.’
The warnings come after water companies urged people to ration how much they use in light of the heatwave.
The water demand reduction manager for Thames Water, Andrew Tucker, has urged customers to use water carefully, saying the heatwave had led to demand being ‘at near record level’.
He said that Thames Water is not currently considering any water restrictions, but that could change if there is little rainfall in the coming months.
More Trending
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme, he said: ‘We know exactly how much water we’ve got in the system, and that’s both in our rivers, the aquifers underground or groundwater aquifers, but also how much we have in our reservoirs.
‘We balance that with how much demand we’re seeing from homes and businesses but at the moment that demand is at near record level, as we were expecting.”
He added: ‘We’re not expecting to need to introduce restrictions on water at the moment. But we know how much water we’ve got, and with people using more at the moment, we are getting through it faster than we would like.
‘If we don’t receive rainfall in the coming months that situation may change but we’re staying on top of it every single day.’
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.
