Thames Water is praying its repairs will hold after patching up ‘multiple burst pipes’ that left homes without water across Gloucestershire and north Wiltshire.
Residents around Swindon started reporting a dip in water pressure early on Saturday afternoon.
And motorists on the A419 began to see a nearby field outside Cricklade begin to fill up with water as one of the leaks was traced to the site.
Thames Water engineers reported a ‘major burst water main’ on Sunday morning and the company told customers it was ‘carrying out urgent repairs’ to ‘get your supply back to normal as quickly as possible’.
But by that afternoon it had opened a bottled water station for its customers in a Swindon car park and begun hand delivering supplies to the most vulnerable customers.
‘As this is taking longer than we’d hoped, we have opened up a drive-through bottled water station,’ the company tweeted.
‘We’re very sorry if this is some distance away from your home.
Motorists on the A419 began to see a nearby field outside Cricklade begin to fill up with water as one of the leaks was traced to the site.
Repairs were made through Sunday night and will not be completed for ‘days’
Free bottled water was on offer at a site in Swindon for customers as far away as Cirencester
‘Unfortunately, whilst we were confirming a suitable location throughout this morning, we found that this is the closest site that meets our requirements to keep everyone safe.’
But homes as far away as Cirencester in Gloucestershire were left without water as the company began battling through Sunday night to repair the leaks.
‘It’s in exactly the same spot that they had a burst pipe that left us without water for 10 hours just two weeks ago!’ wrote Emma Williams on Facebook.
‘I’ve just waited 10 hours for water to be delivered as a priority customer!’
‘Increased pressure required to maintain feed to new housing is blowing out old piping not strong enough to hold the pressure needed,’ added Julian Leggett. ‘All over the Swindon area.’
On Monday it announced that ‘complex repairs’ had taken place overnight but warned residents in the SN6, SN26, GL7 and GL8 postcodes that the repairs are still underway and that the water pressure will not return to normal for some days.
