Island told to conserve water amid pipework fault

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16-07-2025

Residents and tourists on the island of Bryher in the Isles of Scilly have been urged by South West Water (SWW) to conserve water while engineers work to fix a pipework leak.
The utilities firm said residents and tourists still had a water supply - but repairs to a fault near the water treatment works, identified on Tuesday evening, were ongoing.
It added: "Whilst we complete the repair work, we have asked residents and visitors to be mindful of their water usage."
Olivia Callan, who has lived on Bryher her whole life and runs a cafe there, said the issue had impacted the drinks they were serving but said "communication had been good" around the issue.
SWW water has also set up a bottled water station on the quayside, which the utilities firm said was a precaution to "minimise water usage from within the network".
It is thought about 80 people live on Bryher full time but the population grows over the summer, with visitors staying at the island's hotel, campsite and holiday cottages.
Chris Hopkins from Fraggle Rock Bar and Cafe said holidaymakers in their three self-catering units had been asked not to shower until the fault is fixed.
"It's very inconvenient but I've been in the islands for over 40 years and it's just an incident," he said.
"It's one of the parts of living here - once in a while things go wrong and you have to get through.
"Most people who come on holiday to Scilly understand the trials and tribulations of island life."
He added that if the leak was not fixed by Thursday he would be "slightly miffed".
"We're hoping it will be fixed but if not hopefully it'll be fixed the next day."
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Olivia Callan, who was born on the island and runs Olivia's Kitchen, which has remained open, said the shortage had impacted how they were running the business.
She said tea and Americano were off the menu, adding: "We are asking people to be mindful and have posters up about being mindful of water usage."
She said milky coffees, canned drinks, alcohol and food were still being served, but customers were asked to use hand sanitiser in the bathrooms.
"I didn't have a shower this morning, but we can still drink a glass of water.
"Every year if there's hot weather there's a water shortage."
She said ideally more would be put in place to supply water in these situations but added that would be expensive and "not part of the lifestyle on Scilly".
South West Water (SWW) had sent over "lots of water" she added.
On its website, SWW said it was proposing to build a new water treatment facility on each inhabited island on the Isles of Scilly.
It was also "assessing options" to treat both borehole water and seawater, to provie a "continuous, reliable supply of clean water for the longer term".
"We're at an early stage of concept development and are in discussions with the Duchy of Cornwall to identify suitable locations for each treatment facility."
It said "several" properties had their own private separate water supply, but there would be opportunities for those to be connected to the network.
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