Water left to leak into house for six hours

Gavin Price first noticed water leaking onto the pavement outside his property in Poole Street, at about 7.30am.

It started running into his garage and a flat beneath his house where his daughter Laura lives. It was not fixed until 1pm – by which time four inches of water had poured in and badly damaged the property. Workers have now been appointed by Severn Trent to rip out the flooring.

Mr Price claims that could take up to two months. The 59-year-old said he rang Severn Trent when he first noticed the problem last Thursday morning and was given a claim number and told that an engineer was on their way. But the problem was not fixed until about 1.30pm, Mr Price says.

Work is now being carried out to repair the damage but Mr Price, a retired car body repairer, said it "should never had got this bad in the first place".

Mr Price added: "It could have been dealt with much better and we could have avoided this mess."

Severn Trent spokeswoman Sarah MacArthur said: "The customer reported a water leak outside his property at about 7.50am. We sent an engineer to repair it but they realised that they would need to shut off a four-inch pipe so instead they had to dig down to fix the pipe, which took a bit longer.

"We would like to apologise to the people affected and for any inconvenience and thank them for their patience." She added the engineers may not have been aware of how long water was leaking into the property for.