Water restored to most homes

Virtually all homes in the Balgeddie area of Glenrothes have their water supply back after Scottish Water engineers worked through Thursday night to restore the service.

Problems started on Wednesday when a pump failed at the Formonthill plant, causing a stoppage of water for 1200 properties.

The pump was replaced but technical problems resulted in some homes in higher areas being intermittently without water throughout Thursday.

Scottish Water say their engineers have worked around the clock to ease the situation, and water was brought in by tanker. Bottled water has been made available for known special needs customers, and stocks of water have been left in key locations for affected customers to use.

Scottish Water was still asking customers to use water “wisely” to take pressure off the system and allow it to fill more rapidly.

One Balgeddie resident said, “Yesterday Scottish Water were adamant the fault had been fixed. They said it would take a while for the water to reach us as everyone between us and the pumping station would be using the water to wash cars, have showers etc.

“It took seven hours for the water to reach us which I would think is an unacceptable length of time,” she said.

“At least yesterday they supplied us with bottled water.”

The whole situation has inspired a “blitz spirit” amongst many Balgeddie neighbours—in marked contrast to Cardenden last year, where water lorries were chased and profiteers sold water for £2 per bottle.

“We all know each other in our street,” said the resident. “When the lorry arrived about 10pm to deliver bottled water, one neighbour filled his car then he drove around the doors delivering the water to doorsteps.

“We all had a social gathering, including the dogs, in the middle of the street.”

Jim Falconer, Scottish Water’s network operations team leader said, “We apologise to all affected customers for the ongoing nature of this problem.

“This is a short-term problem which we are addressing as urgently as we can.

“We would like to thank our customers for their patience and understanding throughout this incident and apologise for the inconvenience it will have caused them.”