Unwanted new water feature sprays 20 feet into the air (From Malvern Gazette)

Unwanted new water feature sprays 20 feet into the air

10:15am Wednesday 11th July 2007 in News By Tarik Al Rasheed

FLOODS on Wells Road finally subsided earlier this week - after the Malvern Hills Conservators took matters into their own hands and uncovered a leaking water main.

A section of the road at Peachfield Common had been underwater for two weeks, causing drivers to slow to a crawl to avoid skidding.

Although Severn Trent last week claimed the problem was with the Lower Wyche pumping station further up the hill and had been taken care of, water was still flowing onto the road on Monday morning.

This prompted the Conservators to send a mechanical digger up the hill to investigate later that afternoon.

"We had been flooded with calls, and everyone seemed to have been denying all knowledge of the problem, so we went up and just removed some of the top soil," said director Ian Rowat. "We discovered a leak in a 12-inch water main, and as soon as we exposed it the water started gushing 20 feet up into the air. It looked really quite dramatic."

Severn Trent spokeswoman Vicky Phillips said an engineer had gone out to fix the pipe later the same day.

"We went out to Lower Wyche Road to attend to a burst water pipe, that had been located by the local council when they were doing some work in the area," she said. "The pipe has now been fixed by our engineers and we would like to apologise to customers for any inconvenience that may have been caused."

When asked why it had taken so long to resolve the standing water problem, she added: "The engineer who would have gone out and checked the area would not have been looking for a water leak as we believed the problem was with the pumping station."