‘Workmanship issues’ to blame for burst water main near M5
ABURST water pipe in Gloucestershire that closed schools and left thousands without water was the result of “workmanship issues” with a repair on the same pipe in 2017, the area’s MP has said.
The burst water main in Churchdown led to thousands of people being left without water in Cheltenham for much of the morning of September 30, as well as numerous local schools having to be closed.
The source of the leak was discovered in a field near the M5, where a mains had burst spilling gallons of water.
Water cascaded down a field towards the M5 as Severn Trent Water arrived on the scene to fix the leak.
Nearly a fortnight on from the incident, Cheltenham MP Alex Chalk has confirmed the problem that led to the leakage.
The MP promised answers to the people affected by the outage in the aftermath of the problems, and confirmed via his Facebook page that Severn Trent Water (STW) had told him the problem lay in “workmanship issues” relating to a repair on the same stretch of the pipe in 2017.
He further said that he had received assurance from STW that it had “improved its repair standards” in response to the recurring problem.
The MP’s statement said: “After the massive water outage in Cheltenham on 30 September, I contacted Severn Trent Water for an explanation. It caused huge disruption to the town, and many schools had to close for the day – including Bournside, Bettridge, Charlton Kings Junior, Balcarras, Belmont, Warden Hill Primary and Charlton Kings Infants.
“I have today received their explanation. They’ve stated that the root cause of the burst main was ‘a 2017 repair failing as a result of workmanship issues’. Whilst I commend STW for being frank and open about what went wrong, it is clearly concerning that this major disruption was caused by a poor repair carried out so recently.
“Plainly STW need to raise their game. They have assured me they have now improved their repair standards to include additional protection to bolts and fittings, which will increase the lifespan of repairs.
“They have further assured me that ‘we are not expecting any further issues’.”
Severn Trent Water confirmed that the source of the burst had come from a section of pipe that had previously been repaired.
However, the service said the section had now been “fixed and reinforced” to prevent a recurrence of the issue, as well as apologising for the disruption caused.
A Severn Trent spokesperson said: “We’re really sorry again for the issues caused last month in Churchdown. After an investigation, our teams found that the section of pipe that had burst had previously been repaired, but has now been fixed and reinforced to help prevent it from happening again.
“Again, we’d like to apologise for the disruption that was caused and want to thank everyone again for their patience as we worked to get everything back to normal as quickly as we could.”