A WATER company has announced it will invest millions on reducing leaks – yet it took a whole week to repair a pipe in Eleanor Street which created a huge pool of leaked water.
Anglian Water has announced it will spend £70 million on "improving its sewer network, as well as reducing leakage and minimising the impact of future droughts" at no cost to customers.
However, Dan Scott, manager of Grimsby Tyres and Auto Centre, in Eleanor Street, Grimsby, wishes they'd invested in fixing the burst pipe outside his workshop sooner.
Yesterday, on the day of the announcement, engineers finally arrived and fixed the pipe which caused a huge pool of water to gather outside – a whole week after he first rang up to report the problem.
Mr Scott said: "You can't even measure how much water will have been wasted in the time between me reporting it and them bothering to fix it.
"I reported it last week and thought they might sort it out over the weekend to cause minimal disruption – but customers have had to drive and walk through it all week.
"The engineer came out once before, because it was pulling the tarmac up, but he just put a stick to the floor, listened to the ground, and then went off.
"The annoying thing is that they don't act when all that water is wasted, but they'll probably slap us with a hosepipe ban next week as they usually do when we've had one day of sunshine."
A spokesman for Anglian Water apologised for the delay and said that engineers visited the site and fixed the fault yesterday afternoon.
Obtaining the necessary permissions to work on the site had taken some time.
The spokesman added: "We investigate all reports of leaks as a priority, but with 40,000km of pipes to maintain, we do have to schedule repair jobs according to their severity, and this can sometimes mean a delay in repairing smaller leaks.
"We recognise that no leak can never be considered a good thing and that's why we have doubled what we spend on leakage, investing about £35-million each year on finding and fixing leaks.
"Our leakage rate is around half the national average, as a result, and while we're always looking to improve – we do lead the industry.
"None of this means we can rest on our laurels, and we're constantly striving to improve our position, and would therefore like to reiterate our apology to those customers who feel we have not acted quickly enough on this occasion."
If you spot a leak, you can report it by phoning Anglian Water on 0800 771881.
