FED up residents no longer have dampened spirits after a helping hand from the Standard led to Severn Trent Water officials repairing a water leak that has been troubling neighbours in Abbeydale for 15 weeks.
Householders in Stanley Close first noticed water coming from underneath a garage at back of their properties on May 13.
Alarmed, they contacted Severn Trent Water only to be told it was a Redditch borough council problem – with the result that ever since then it’s been batted between the two authorities without the problem being fixed.
“There’s a 30 to 40ft stream of water which we have to walk through to get to the houses,” said local resident Raymond Critcher.
“For the past 15 weeks it’s been passed from Severn Trent to Redditch council and back again – only now there’s algae growing in it and if someone slips while crossing the water it will prove costly,” said Mr Critcher, aged 79.
He and his wife Marlene, aged 75, have lived in the close for nearly 50 years and he says they have never experienced anything like this.
“I remember we have a pipe go once and they were here the very next day to repair it, but this has been going on for months.”
When contacted by the Redditch Standard on Tuesday (August 25) Severn Trent immediately leapt into action.
A spokesperson said: “We discovered a leak on Stanley Road which partly runs underneath our customer’s garage. Because of the position of the pipe, we’ve met with our customer and the local council on several occasions to carefully plan the repairs.
“As a result, we’ve planned to complete the repairs this Thursday (August 27) to fix the leak and get everything back to normal for our customer.”
