16,000 Morecambe homes to be without water for further 24 hours and much of Lancaster still affected

The announcement has been made as United Utilities bid to fix the issue caused by burst pipes in the district over the weekend.

This morning we reported how many homes acrossd the district reported either reduced water pressure or no water at all over the last two days.

This was as a result of the sudden rise in temperatures causing frozen pipes to burst or crack.

Some people reported being without water since 9pm on Saturday.

Teams from United Utilities were out across the area to find and fix the leaks.

However, United Utilities announced just before 4pm today, Monday, that they would have to switch off the water to 16,000 homes in Morecambe for the next 24 hours.

They said: “As you are aware, the impact of the freeze and now thaw has been affecting your water supply in your area.

“This has resulted in customers experiencing no water or poor pressure as a result of increased demand for water and multiple bursts and leaks at customer properties and on the water network.

“In order to refill reservoirs which provide water to homes and business in your area, this unfortunately means we will now need to turn off your water supply for the next 24 hours.

"You can expect this to happen within the next hour onwards. This is to allow for the water system to refill and meet the demand for the area.

A number of mitigations are in place, and the difficult decision has been made to turn off supply to properties in the Morecambe, White Lund, West End, Bare and Sandylands area for 24 hours.

"This step will allow storage within the water network to be refilled while the rate of water produced at the local treatment works is increased."

“We have established bottled water stations in these locations:

“Matthias Street Car Park, Matthias Street , Morecambe, LA5 5JR

“Salt Ayre Leisure Centre, Doris Henderson Way, Morecambe, LA1 5JS

“These are now until 9pm this evening (Monday) and from 8am to 8pm on Tuesday.

“A third station will also be open from 5-30pm until 9pm at:

“Morecambe FC ‘The Mazuma Stadium’, Christie Way, Westgate, Morecambe, LA4 4TB.

“This will also be open from 8am to 8pm tomorrow (Tuesday).

“Our sincere apologies for the inconvenience this will obviously cause you. It is not an action taken lightly but is essential to ensure we can reintroduce normal services for everyone in the Morecambe and Lancaster areas as soon as is possible.

“We are supporting priority customers at this time in the area. “We will keep you updated as we go through the next 24 hours.”

Anyone who would benefit from extra support can register for Priority Services by calling 0345 672 2888.

Phil Sweeney, Central Operations Director at United Utilities, said: “We are really sorry that customers are going to be impacted in this way.

“We have been working hard over the past few days to repair leaks as quickly as possible and increase production at our water treatment works, but unfortunately we have reached the stage where very difficult decisions have to be made.

“Turning off supply to some parts of Morecambe allows us to safeguard other areas and key sites, including hospitals, and will give us time to refill our network storage.

“Vulnerable customers on our Priority Services register, as well as places such as care homes, will receive bottled water deliveries. All customers can collect free bottled water from our stations.

“We would like to reassure customers that we are doing all we can to get things back to normal as soon as possible, and we apologise again for the inconvenience.”

Compensation will be paid automatically to those affected.

Meanwhile, many homes and businesses across Lancaster are still affected by the outage, including much of the city centre, Marsh, Freehold and St George’s Quay.

Residents have reported long queues for water at the emergency stations, and city councillor Erica Lewis expressed a need for a further site south of the river in Lancaster.