Loss of water pressure affected 80 homes

A burst water main at Birds Hill caused low pressure for households, with many residents reporting no flow in the upstairs of their properties at all.

Local shops reportedly sold out of bottled water as residents fretted on when supplies would resume.

A flood of comments were posted on social media by villagers, including: “My water is down to a trickle and does look in any way like I’d want to drink it!”

But the spirit of villagers has been praised as those unaffected offered help to those in nearby streets.

One resident said: “I know it’s not been a major crisis but it’s days like today that make you realise what a lovely community we have in the village. People offering to let you fill up water bottles, have showers, giving updates and so on. What fantastic residents we have in Heath and Reach.”

Another posted: “What a lovely community we live in, I was just delivered a big bottle of water by a lovely neighbour who was busy knocking and dropping off supplies to his fellow residents. I’ve had 3 texts with offers of water. Thank you.”

A spokesman for Anglian Water said: “There was a burst mains water pipe at Birds Hill which affected around 80 properties. There was some pressure in the pipes but the residents will have experience low pressure in their homes and they are likely to have had no pressure in upstairs bathrooms.

“The burst was isolated and fixed as soon as possible and pressure was back up around three hours later. We would like to apologise to any of our customers who were affected by this issue.”

He added that although there was maintenance work going onn between February 21 and 29 in Birds Hill, Thift Road and Woburn Road, that was not linked to the Sunday’s problems.