Thousands of households across Merseyside will receive compensation after being left with no water for two days.
United Utilities confirmed the news in a statement on Sunday as work continues to restore a 24-inch burst water pipe on Church Road near the junction of Netherton Way in Litherland. 32,000 houses have been left with no water or low water pressure as a result of the issue which occurred in the early hours of Saturday, July 23.
Pubs and shops across the region were forced to close their doors on Sunday after being left with no water for over 24 hours. The areas affected are within the following postcode areas: L9, L20, L21, L22, L23, L30.
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United Utilities expects the water supply to be back on to all affected properties by 10pm tonight. All households who have been without water for more than 12 hours will automatically receive compensation.
Here's everything you need to know:
The amount of money people will receive depends how long they have been without water for this weekend. People will receive £30 per household for the first 12 hour period and a further £30 for each additional 12 hour period after that.
United Utilities said customers do not need to contact them to claim the compensation as the company will write to them with all the details. Liverpool's Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram criticised the water board for their failure to communicate properly with residents on Sunday or put the appropriate infrastructure in place to help mitigate the situation.
Mr Rotheram described the situation as "completely unacceptable" with some areas left without support. He said: "A lack of clear and consistent publicly available updates, chaotic scenes at the limited water distribution sites and an entire area in North Liverpool left without support and cut off from easily accessing the temporary water outlets. It's just not good enough."
Following a phone call with the Chief Executive of United Utilities on Sunday evening, Mr Rotheram said he had been offered an apology and assurances that the issues with the water supply should be resolved by 10pm.
He tweeted: "Thank you to all working on the ground to sort this out and support local residents - the engineers, @MerseyPolice, council staff and the many, many people in between. Thanks also for everybody's patience while UU work."
Heavy traffic was reported across the region on Sunday as residents queued up to collect bottled water from stations in Crosby, Netherton and Litherland. United Utilities said 100,000 bottles of water had been handed out to residents as of 5pm, while 1,600 vulnerable customers had also received water deliveries.
Bottle stations set up at Sainsbury's in Crosby and Netherton Activity Centre in Netherton were forced to close temporarily after running out of water. People who are still in need of water are currently being directed Tesco on Hawthorne Road in Litherland.
Residents described their frustration at the situation which had left them unable to flush their toilets or have a shower. Colette Roberts, from Waterloo, was worried she won't be able to open her home-based dog grooming business tomorrow due to the water issues.
She told the ECHO: "I've got a full diary of customers and they're all really worried because I don't know when I'm going to be able to move them to. I'm losing income which is really difficult when you're a small business and you have bills to pay."
Colette's also worried about a number of elderly residents on her street who haven't been able to travel to get water. Chloe, who works as a carer in Netherton, said she was unable to shower her patients due to the lack of available water.
She said: “I’m not very happy about it but it’s good what they’re doing here giving out water.”
United Utilities’ incident manager Simon Chadwick said: “We are very sorry and we appreciate how inconvenient this is for the customers affected. We have been working around the clock on this incident but due to its complexity it is taking longer than we would like to resolve.
“Repair work on the pipe is now complete but it will take time now for the water main to refill and to re-pressurise the supply network. We will continue to provide updates direct to customers over the course of this evening and we thank everyone for their patience in the meantime.
“While our immediate priority is to restore water supplies, I want to reassure customers that we will be making automatic compensation payments to anyone who has gone without water for more than 12 hours. Householders affected do not need to contact us, this will all happen automatically over the coming days.”
United Utilities is providing regular text and email updates to customers in the affected areas. Information will also be updated on United Utilities’ website at www.unitedutilities.com and on social media
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