Water firm was 'under prepared'

Worcestershire's nearest water distribution point was Tewkesbury

Thousands of people in Worcestershire were left without clean drinking water because a utility company was under prepared, a report has said.

Seven Trent Water treatment works shut temporarily after it flooded in 2007, causing a shortage in drinking water.

People in Worcestershire had to go to Tewkesbury to get free bottled water.

Severn Trent said it had since taken measures to improve its water supplies but accepted all the criticisms in Worcestershire councils' flood report.

The report by a joint Worcestershire county and district council scrutiny committee said unusually heavy rainfall had produced the county's "worst flooding in living memory".

'Lessons learned'

Among the criticisms, it said: "Severn Trent was not fully aware and prepared for the consequences of a major incident of this scale, and particularly was not aware of the effect of the closure of Mythe Treatment Works in other areas than Gloucestershire."

At the peak of the flooding, Severn Trent said about 350,000 people in and around Gloucestershire were left without a running water supply, which prompted the largest peace time mobilisation since World War II.

A flood barrier has been built around the water treatment works

It said about 2,000 people on the Worcestershire and Gloucestershire border ran out of water on 25 July, 2007 but were reconnected three days later.

The firm said it had "learned many lessons" since the floods, which affected thousands of acres of farm land and about 6,000 buildings in Worcestershire.

A spokesman for the company added: "We acknowledge the report out today, but we haven't been sitting around waiting for it though."

He pointed out that since last summer Severn Trent had built a 1.5m (4.9 ft) high flood barrier around the perimeter of its Mythe Treatment Works in Tewkesbury.

He said the firm was also building a duplicate pipeline from Strensham in south Worcestershire to its works in Mythe, as a back-up delivery system in case the Tewkesbury plant was ever forced to close again

The report said the information provided by the water company during the flooding was poor and it should revise its emergency plans.

Severn Trent was not fully... prepared for the consequences of a major incident of this scale, and was not aware of the effect of the closure of Mythe Treatment Works in other areas than Gloucestershire. Excerpt from the scrutiny committee's flood report

Other issues raised by the report were:

• The need to set up a centrally funded and nationally co-ordinated flood rescue system.

• Calls for better drainage.

• Improved distribution of cash aid - after the National Farmers Union claimed only £800,000 out of £2m of government flood relief had been paid out to farmers.

The report also recommended that central government should pay for the clean up operations from major floods after one Worcestershire farmer paid £4,000 to dispose of a 60ft (18.2m) by 15ft (4.5m) high pile of debris that washed up on his land in the floods.

Committee chairman Martin King, of Wychavon District Council, said: "There is no point in making recommendations unless they are acted upon and lead to future improvements.

"I can assure the people of Worcestershire that the group will be finding out how its recommendations have been acted upon and what progress has been made in managing flood risk, in twelve months time."