Homes and businesses face fourth day without water

Scottish Water said it was having to recharge the network slowly to prevent further issues

About 200 homes and businesses in the Berwickshire area of the Scottish Borders remain without water for a fourth day.

Faults at a treatment works near Duns were identified by Scottish Water on Tuesday, with about 6,000 customers being affected.

Although most communities have been reconnected, parts of Duns and Coldstream – as well as the villages of Chirnside, Coldingham, Paxton and Burnmouth - remain without tap water.

Scottish Water said it was having to recharge the network slowly to prevent further issues – but hoped to have all households reconnected later on Friday.

Bottled water collection points have been set up in a dozen of towns and villages as work continues to restore supplies.

Scottish water said more than 20 tankers were deployed to help transfer eight million litres of additional water to prevent further 4,000 properties being affected.

'Unacceptable' situation

John Griffen, water operations general manager at Scottish Water, said: "This has been one of the biggest challenges we have ever had on our network in the area.

"A large number of staff, including many who volunteered from their normal day jobs, have been out in force across the Borders to resolve the issue and help minimise the impact on customers.

"We would again like to apologise to all of our customers who were impacted, we really do appreciate how frustrating a loss of water supply is, and we have worked night and day to get customers' taps flowing as soon as possible."

Problems were identified at the Rawburn Water Treatment Works on Tuesday and since then engineers have worked through the night to restore supply.

By Thursday, 4,200 properties in parts of Berwickshire had water restored with a further 1,800 expected to be restored by the early hours of Friday.

John Lamont, MP for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk, said vital services such as Coldstream Medical Centre had lost supplies, adding that he had told Scottish Water officials the situation had been "unacceptable".