Water firm's response to outage 'unacceptable' - MP

Anglian Water's response to a supply outage in a rural area was "not acceptable", an MP said.

Villages including Thorpe Mandeville, Culworth, Lower Boddington and Eydon in Northamptonshire were without water for more than 48 hours between Monday evening and Thursday morning.

Sarah Bool, the Conservative MP for South Northamptonshire, said there was a "complete lack of clarity" communicated to locals during the outage.

Anglian Water said it would carry out "a thorough review to establish the root cause" of the issue, believed to be linked to a fault at a pumping station.

Bool said that she was alarmed by the speed of the water firm's response, adding that she was only made aware of the extent of the issue on Wednesday afternoon.

Anglian Water's distribution of bottled water to people living in the affected area did not commence until about 40 hours into the outage.

However, it said that "96% of customers in the impacted area received bottled water" throughout the day from 10:00 BST on Wednesday.

Speaking to BBC Radio Northampton, Bool said: "There was no coordination about what was going on.

"In these situations, you need to have contingency, and this weather has been extraordinarily warm.

"We are experiencing more heatwaves, and they [Anglian Water] need to be prepared."

In a statement, Anglian Water said: "A prolonged loss of water supply at any time is concerning, especially during extreme temperatures, and we take the situation very seriously.

"We have already begun a thorough review to establish the root cause of the outage, how our initial response and support arrangements operated in practice and whether our communication processes were appropriate."

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