Water supplies ‘will be fully restored’ in Morecambe today

United Utilities turned off the water to around 16,000 homes across Morecambe on Monday afternoon, saying they needed to safeguard water supplies to hospitals and other key sites in the area, after seeing a surge in demand for water caused by bursts and leaks on thawing pipes when the temperatures started to rise.

Water supplies were shut off to some parts of the town as a temporary measure to allow storage levels to recover in the water network.

Some residents had already been without water since Saturday evening.

Engineers began refilling the water network on Tuesday afternoon, allowing taps to gradually begin flowing again over the course of Tuesday evening and into the early hours of Wednesday morning.

It is expected that the refill will be complete later on Wednesday.

Bottled water stations will open again from 8am on Wednesday to support any customers who may still be seeing low water pressure. People can collect free bottled water from:

· Matthias Street Car Park, Mathias Street, Morecambe, LA5 5JR

· Morecambe Festival Market car park, Marine Road, Morecambe, LA4 4DW

Kevin Fowlie, United Utilities Incident Manager, said: “We made good progress on Tuesday, finding and fixing some large leaks in the area and increasing storage in the water network.

“It took some time to refill such a large area but I’m pleased to say that all customers will have water from their taps throughout the course of this morning. Pressure may fluctuate slightly throughout today but we expect everything to be back to normal later on.

“We will be writing to everyone affected with details of automatic compensation. Customers will not need to contact us to receive this.

“We’re very grateful to customers for their patience during this difficult period and we would still encourage people to report any leaks that they see out in the highway. Our teams are working around the clock finding and fixing leaks that have been caused by this period of extreme weather.”

To report a leak to United Utilities, visit https://www.unitedutilities.com/emergencies/report-a-problem/