Burst Flintshire water main leaves thousands without supply

BBC News

3 hours ago

Thousands of people are without water after temporary repairs to a burst main failed. Welsh Water said a full emergency repair was under way to fix the pipe in Broughton, Flinthshire.Flint, Holywell, Ffynnongroyw, Greenfield, Llanerch y Mor, Mostyn, Oakenholt, Talacre, Whitford, Queensferry, Shotton, Connah's Quay, Garden City, Hawarden, Mancot and Sandycroft have all been affected.Bottled water stations have been set up with deliveries being made to vulnerable customers.
"We would like to apologise to our customers that are experiencing disruption with their water supplies and understand their frustration, especially those who had similar problems last weekend," Welsh Water said. The company said the temporary repair on a large main in Broughton carried out last weekend was done to get people back on supply as quickly as possible and allow it to refill the network.That would have given the water company enough storage time to go back and complete the permanent repair without any impact on supplies."Unfortunately, the temporary repair has not held and so we have to act quickly to carry out an emergency repair before full storage could be restored," it added."This is complex due to the pipe being located 5m (16ft) underground and close to underground electric cables and other services, which requires extra care," it added."We've had to do this repair quicker than planned and with lower levels of storage in several of our service reservoirs."Crews worked on the repair overnight and the repair work would continue throughout the day, the company said."Due to the scale of the network, it will then take us some time to safely refill the system, including the service reservoirs, and in turn restore supplies but we will keep customers informed."