Ambergate: Fears for valuables after flood at storage site

Water from the burst pipe cascaded on to the storage unit and caused "significant" damage

Fears have been raised over items kept in a storage centre that flooded.

A large burst pipe sent 100ft (30m) of water into the air for hours on 21 February, which cascaded on to units at Quick Self Storage, on the A610 Ripley Road, in Ambergate, Derbyshire.

Customers said they had not been allowed in and were still trying to find out the state of their belongings.

The firm's owner said it had caused "jaw-dropping levels of devastation" and customers were their priority.

Concerns about the safety of the structure, which had been recently taken over from Storage 4U, and the presence of asbestos have prevented customer access since.

Customer Daniel Jenkins said: "We were there when it happened. At first we thought they were power-washing the roof.

"When I walked outside I saw the water fountain rushing up into the air. We didn't realise how serious it would become until we had to run out of the building and parts of it were collapsing around us."

Daniel Jenkins had put all of his young family's possessions into storage while staying with family in Belper during house hunting

He added: "Every other day we are thinking about something new that's in there - we are losing sleep over it.

"The longer it goes on, the less chance we have of recovering anything."

Jennifer Nelson said there were sentimental boxes of pictures, letters and her baby clothes, which her mum had put together, in storage

Jennifer Nelson, 33, who put her belongings into storage while she went travelling, said she had no idea whether they had been damaged.

She said as well as clothes, books and audio equipment, she had stored sentimental items like large keepsake boxes.

"My whole life was in that unit," she said. "It makes me upset just thinking about it."

Quick Self Storage said the entire building had been affected by the flood

Marcus Singh, who took over the business with his wife only three weeks before the pipe burst, said: "We are devastated - it has left us in pieces. Our main priority is to make sure the customers and their needs are met first and we will worry about ourselves after.

"The incident lasted six hours. It was such a velocity and force - nothing could withstand that.

"The problem was the roof that caved in was made of asbestos so we cannot let customers in until the asbestos has been quarantined.

"The electrics are also defunct. I am getting a generator in on Thursday and that is when the clean-up operation can begin. It is only then we will invite customers in to deal with their possessions."

He added they had been in regular contact with customers.

A Severn Trent spokesperson said teams worked throughout the night to isolate the main and make a repair.

"Our insurers have been in touch directly with customers who were impacted by this burst and are following the usual procedure for assessing insurance claims," the spokesperson added.