Bishop Stortford's water supply affected for fifth day

Affinity Water has set up a bottled water collection point in Bishop's Stortford

Residents of a town have been left with little or no water for a fifth day after a rapid change in temperatures caused a significant number of burst pipes.

Affinity Water said it had received about 113 reports of people without water or low pressure in Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire.

The company has been trying to restore water in the area since 19 December.

A spokesman said pressure was "not building up as expected" after repairs.

"We believe this is due to an airlock in some parts of the network, which is preventing the pressure from building up," he said.

"We have teams of technicians on the ground who are working to get the air out of the network so we can then start to build up pressures again.

"We are very sorry if you are still experiencing an interruption to your supply. We will need to work throughout the day and night to resolve this and we expect supplies to improve tomorrow morning."

Affinity Water said it was "very sorry" the issue had not yet been "fully resolved"

Affinity Water said the water supply issues were "all down to the weather conditions" over the last few days.

Last week, temperatures plummeted to below freezing, but on Saturday they rose by 20C (36F) in some areas.

Kevin Barton, from the company, said this "rapid thaw" caused issues for water companies.

"Those temperature swings cause ground movement and pipes to expand and contract and that led to significantly more bursts on our network," he said.

He said there had been 12 times the normal amount of bursts for this time of year.

The company has set up a bottled water collection point at Thorley Community Centre in Friedberg Avenue.