Dear Customer,
The last week has been extremely challenging for our customers affected by the significant burst on our water main in Broughton which impacted on households and businesses in parts of Flintshire.
I want to apologise again for the huge disruption and appreciate the inconvenience, concern and frustration that this has caused, especially to those customers who had issues with their water supply the previous weekend.
Following a burst on the main drinking water pipe in Broughton on Saturday 9th August, our team carried out a temporary repair in order to restore water supplies as quickly as possible given the hot weather conditions and heatwaves that were anticipated. This allowed us to refill the network with the aim of giving us enough storage time to go back and complete the permanent repair without any impact on supplies.
Unfortunately, the temporary repair didn’t hold long enough for the system to fully replenish. This meant that we had to carry out an emergency repair. The work was very challenging as the burst pipe was 5 meters underground in close proximity to a number of properties and close to electric cables which required extra care.
Water supplies have been restored to all areas, but we have teams on standby to deal with any issues should they occur as the network settles into its normal operation.
Our teams have worked tirelessly to carry out the repair safely and as soon as they could so that supplies could be restored to homes and businesses in the area. We also had a fleet of tankers moving water around the network in the area to minimise disruption to as many customers as possible and to provide two hospitals and care homes in the area with water supply. We had teams working 24 hours a day delivering bottled water to vulnerable customers on our Priority Register and local community hubs as well as helping customers at 3 of our bottled water collection points. With water supplies restored the bottled water stations and home deliveries will now stop.
We would like to thank customers for the generosity they’ve shown to our staff and contractors working on site and at the bottled water stations – the response has been truly humbling.
During this incident, we’ve remained committed to providing support for customers and businesses. This is why we confirmed quickly that each household will receive £30 for every 12 hours they’ve been off supply. We will automatically pay compensation into customers’ bank accounts (where we have their details or by cheque if not). Business customers will get an automatic payment of £75 for every 12 hours and will also be able to claim for any loss of income. More information is available on our website and the application process will be open from Tuesday, August 19th 2025 at Midday.
We will conduct a full review of the incident and all aspects of our response. We also know that we can always do things to improve how we manage this type of incident. So, over the next few weeks we will be contacting a selection of customers impacted so that we can learn lessons which will inform how we deal with these large-scale incidents in future.
I would like to thank for all the support we’ve received from local residents, elected representatives and volunteers as well as key agencies such as Flintshire Council, North Wales Fire & Rescue Service, North Wales Police.
Finally, I would like to apologise again for the inconvenience this has caused and thank you again for patience and for working with us.
Yours sincerely,
P.Perry
Chief Executive
Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water
