More than 400 homes have been left without water in yet another incident in what is becoming a long and drawn out saga between United Utilities and residents of an East Lancashire village.
For months now, people living in Billington in the Ribble Valley have been plagued by high water pressure issues, leaking pipes and burst water mains.
The problems have been so disruptive that even the local MP, Nigel Evans has waded in on the issue, which United Utilities insist they are trying to fix.
However, on Friday evening, the majority of residents in Billington were left with either no water, or a tiny trickle escaping from their taps.
Councillor Ged Mirfin who represents the Whalley and Painter Wood area said: "There's a burst water main in Billington and more than 400 houses are without water.
"Surely United Utilities now need to do something urgently.
"If this doesn't force their hand then nothing will."
The outage, which has caused mass disruption across the village was first reported at around 4.15pm.
One resident, Emily Travers, said: "There's been no water from around 4pm throughout Billington.
"I contacted United Utilities at 4.15pm who said it would be around four hours until they came out.
"There's water running down Chapel Rise from an apparent burst pipe.
"United Utilities are apparently bringing out tankers to supply us with water until it is fixed."
Posting on Facebook, another resident said: "This needs sorting, it is getting beyond a joke, it's been every single month for the last year.
"We have lived on Billington Gardens for 20 years and it’s never been as bad as the last year."
While another resident commented: "Yep, no water on Walmsley Brow. I called it in at 5.10pm.
"Luckily I alerted the neighbours to fill their kettle.
"If it’s not the water that's the problem, it’s the electricity."
At 5pm a statement on the United Utilities website said: "We’re currently investigating an issue in your area which may mean you have no water or it’s coming out of your tap as a trickle.
"We’re sorry for the inconvenience and hope to have your taps flowing again very soon.
"We’ll provide further updates when we know more about what is causing the problem."
The statement was then updated just before 7pm, with United Utilities saying leakage engineers were being sent out to the area to try and fix the problem.
It read: "A leak on Whalley Road affecting customers in BB7, has been spotted and reported to us.
"We’ve been out to investigate and found this to be the cause for some of you having no water or just a trickle.
"Our leakage engineers should be on site as soon as possible.
"We’re sorry for the inconvenience and hope to have your taps flowing again very soon."
At 8.24pm, a further update stated: "Our leakage engineers have arrived at Whalley Road and will start work on repairing the leak as soon as possible.
"We’re sorry for the inconvenience, we’ll provide further updates once the leak is repaired."
At 11pm another update from United Utilities said: “We’re very sorry for the disruption caused by a burst in the area. Engineers are on site undertaking the necessary repairs.
“During this time we are using our water on wheels tankers to restore water for almost all properties.
“We know how inconvenient it is for customers when a water main bursts and the supply goes off without warning.
"We are committed to improving the situation in this area with design plans in place to order and install further pressure management valves to help resolve the problems.”
United Utilities have been contacted for a further statement.
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