Incidents

We’d like to apologise to those experiencing no supply, poor pressure or discoloured water in the SY7 area of Craven Arms this morning. 

Our teams are carrying out some essential repair work.

Although we didn’t anticipate this affecting our customers, we are aware that some customer’s supplies have now been impacted.

The team on site are committed to getting this resolved quickly and efficiently so the water supply is back to normal as soon as possible.

We’re very sorry for any inconvenience this may be causing and are confident this repair will be completed by 11pm. We’ll make sure this page is updated as we receive more information.  

The Fire Services have contacted us to advise they will be using hydrants in your area. As a result, you may experience lower water pressure and/or discoloured water.

They are working as efficiently as they can, so supplies are restored back to normal as soon as possible.

We’re really sorry if you are impacted by this and thank you for your patience. We’ll provide updates here as soon as we have more information.

We’d like to apologise to those experiencing no supply, poor pressure or discoloured water in the NG23 area of Newwark this afternoon. This is due to a burst water pipe. 

Our teams are on site working to repair this and restore your water supply as soon as possible. We are confident the repair will be completed by 10pm. We are very sorry for any inconvenience this may be causing. We’ll make sure this page is updated as we receive more information.

We’ve been made aware some of our customers in the SY8 area of Ludlow are experiencing no supply, poor pressure or discoloured water this Afternoon.

Please be assured our teams are investigating the cause. We are very sorry for any inconvenience and will provide further updates here once we have more information.           

We’re pleased to inform you that the works in your area are now completed, and the water supply is back to normal. For those that were impacted by this we’d like to thank you for your continued patience whilst this was being carried out.

We’re pleased to inform you that the repair for the burst water main is now completed. The water supply has been returned to normal. For those that were impacted by this we’d like to thank you for your continued patience whilst this was being carried out.

We’d taken away several questions and concerns from you and we’d like to provide you with an update for the ones we’ve been able to answer so far.

What monitoring is currently taking place on Chadwick Nick?

We are currently monitoring the pipe with high-speed loggers which were installed after the most recent burst in January 2025. This will give us an automated alert for any early leak that is detected.

We will also be increasing the amount of physical leakage detection on the pipe where our leakage engineers will walk the length of this on a bi-weekly basis.

What geotechnical analysis has been completed?

Three surveys have been carried out on the pipe, both internally and by an independent assessor which has given the insight into ground movement. We’re now in the process of acquiring ground movement sensors which will give us early warnings of ground movement in the area.

How long will it take for the alarm to be picked up by our Network Control team and how long will it take to press the button to shut the valves?

When the alarm is received into our Network Control team, this will trigger an immediate response for initial assessment. This activity will take, a number of minutes, then they’ll push the button to begin the process of closing the valves remotely.

How long will the actuator valves take to shut?

When the high flow alarm is received, we’ll trigger the process for the valves to start closing, once this has been triggered, they will begin to close within 1-2 minutes.

What we don’t know just yet is exactly how long it will take to fully close the valves. This will be determined at the commissioning phase, once the work to install the valves and loggers has been completed. This is where we will run a mock incident and operate the valves with several different loggers on the network. This will help us understand how quickly the valves can be closed, this is to ensure everything runs smoothly without causing surges on the wider network, which could lead to further bursts and impacts to our customers.

What size leak will the flow meters pick up on?

The logger we have gone with will allow us to set the variance anywhere from plus or minus 2% - we need to make sure we set the sensitivity to the right level which hasn’t been determined yet. This will also be determined at the commissioning phase mentioned above.

How many people will you need on the ground to attend as part of the response?

We won’t need anyone on the ground to isolate the water - this will be done remotely. With the loggers and actuator valves we’re installing we’ll be able to pick up on changes to the flow indicating a leak before the burst gets to the level it has previously.

We’ll still need some manual intervention to operate a small number of valves - this will be to ensure customers are back on water supply as soon as possible. We’ll also have a repair team to fix the leak -you may not see these engineers due to the location of the pipe and valves.

What reduction will there be in the volume of water compared to previous events when you begin operating the valves?

We have installed more acoustic loggers on the network which will allow us to pick up leaks before they happen, so we don’t anticipate there being future events that cause the flooding you’ve experienced previously. However, if this was to occur, we have calculated the risk and volume of water will be reduced by 98%.

We have previously been your highest priority, where will be once this work has been completed for a long-term solution?

Although we’re going to be installing remotely operated actuated valves and loggers to mitigate against the flooding, we’re pleased to confirm you will remain our highest priority.

What will be the distance between the two actuator valves?

There is circa 1km between the two valves.

What solutions have we looked at so far, and why haven’t you gone with this as viable option?

We have investigated several solutions so far which include, completely abandoning this section of water main which wasn’t a feasible option. We have also explored the possibility of slip lining the water pipe, but the maximum size we needed to do this isn’t available also meaning this wasn’t a possibility. We are still considering other design options for the permanent solution.

For the interim solution, we have also explored the option of installing mains powered actuator valves, rather than being battery operated. However, if we were to go with the mains powered actuators, this was going to delay any work by at least six months due to various factors - we didn’t go with this option because we wanted the mitigation is place as soon as possible.

We know there are still some questions outstanding and as soon as we have the answers for you, we’ll be back in touch with you again.