'Angry' Northamptonshire villagers say they feel 'helpless' after 'waking up with no running water' for the '42nd time this year'

Northamptonshire village residents say they feel “helpless” after “waking up with no water coming out of the taps” for the “42nd time this year”.

Residents in Maidstone, Adstone, Abthorpe and the surrounding areas, near Towcester, have had low water pressure or no water over the past couple of days, according to providers Anglian Water.

The company says it is dealing with a series of burst mains in the area.

Adstone resident Racheal Halverson said: "We can't drink, can't wash, and can't flush...again.

"For the fourth time this week, the residents of Adstone and surrounding villages have woken up to empty taps. As a one off this would be bad enough but counting up the messages from Anglian Water, there have been 41 such issues in the past year.

"The residents feel helpless. Complaints always seem to elicit the same response: 'We're working as hard as we can to fix the problem'. The current problem that is. The root of the problem seems to be under-investment; a fixation on current year profits and maximum bonuses to directors."

Rachael says she has not once been compensated for any of the incident and has her own theory as to why.

She said: "The company only has to compensate if the water is off for a full 24 hours. The lady at Anglian Water told me if there's even one drop of water at 3am, that voids the need to compensate.”

The residents say they even had to go without running water throughout the scorching hot days this summer, forcing them to shell out on bottles of water to keep them going.

Rachael said: "Water was off for some of those scorching days in the summer and residents have learnt to plan ahead, keeping bottles for the inevitable next time it happens. But there seems to be no end in sight.

"One resident was told by Anglian that this problem was not a priority. It seems the Government needs to legislate to ensure customers get a fairer deal in a monopoly situation where they can't just walk away and find another supplier."

Another resident added that they were “angry” and that they do no get any helpful initiatives from Anglian Water to alleviate the situation.

An Anglian Water spokeswoman said the firm is dealing with the situation and apologised for the inconvenience.

The spokeswoman said: "Our teams are dealing with a series of burst mains in Maidford, Adstone, Abthorpe and the surrounding area which regrettably means some of our customers have had low water pressure or no water intermittently over the past couple of days.

"Our teams are working hard to move water around our network and are using tankers to bring people back on water while we fix the problem.

“We’re sorry for the inconvenience this is causing. We’d like to thank our customers for bearing with us while we get things back to normal.”

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