Scottish Water works to support Borders households affected by loss of water supply
Scottish Water is continuing its efforts to support customers in the Scottish Borders impacted by a loss of water supply, low pressure or intermittent supply.
On Tuesday (August 26) significant damage to a pipe at Rawburn Water Treatment Works was identified.
Scottish Water’s dedicated incident team responded and temporary infrastructure is in place to restore water to affected customers as soon as possible.
Rawburn Treatment Works serves a number of supply tanks which distribute water to customers across the large area. The water levels in these tanks are now restoring, therefore customers in Duns, Eccles, Eyemouth, Coldingham and Chirnside will begin to see an improvement in the coming hours. Around 20 tankers are being used to supplement the water network.
Customer Water Services General Manager, John Griffen, said: “First and foremost I’d like to apologise to customers who have been affected by this interruption to their normal water supply. Initially around 5,000 customers were impacted, however this is reducing as the situation improves.
“Our focus has been on restoring tank levels to maintain supplies to try and meet customer demand, and our operational teams on the ground have been working round-the-clock to do this.
“Alongside this our customer care teams and volunteers from across the business have been deployed to support customers on our Priority Services Register, deliver bottled water, and set up bottled water collection points. This has taken time due to the number of customers affected, and we thank customers for their patience.
“If an unmanned bottled water collection point has no water left, please report this to our contact centre on 0800 0778 778 and we will replenish this as soon as we can. There are plans to replenish stocks at these locations throughout the day.
“The recovery process has been extremely complex but I’m pleased to confirm we’re seeing progress as tank levels are improving, which is encouraging. We’re taking a cautious approach to recharge the network slowly to protect customer supplies and the quality of the water which serves these communities.”
Scottish Water’s main bottled water collection point is at Berwickshire High School where customers can pick up bottled water for drinking.
Additional bottled water collection points are being replenished throughout the day at the following locations:
• Lammerview, Chirnside, Duns TD11 3UN
• Swinton Kirk, Main St, Swinton, Duns TD11 3JJ
• Opposite Greenlaw Town Hall, The Square, Greenlaw, Duns TD10 6UD
• Langton Parish Church, Gavinton, Duns TD11 3QT
• Eccles Village Hall, B6461 Main Street, Eccles, Kelso TD5 7QP
• Birgham Cemetery, Coldstream, TD12 4NG
• Village Hall, Whitsome, Duns, TD11 3NA
• Foulden & Mordington Parish Church, TD15 1UH
• Hill View, Coldstream, TD12 4ED
• Paxton Village Hall, Paxton, TD15 1TE
The latest update will be available on Scottish Water’s dedicated incident webpage, including any changes to bottled water collection points.