'Boil water' notices lifted for Darlington residents

Residents in Darlington are no longer being advised to boil their water before drinking it.

The notice was originally issued for some areas of the town on Tuesday, 3 February.

Teams from the water company and the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) have been carrying out a series of water quality tests on the water networks across the Darlington area after a fault at the Broken Scar Treatment Works.

These tests are now complete and Northumbrian Water says the results show the tap water meets the high-quality standards expected and is safe for customers to drink again.

"Every sample carried out across Darlington since the fault at the Treatment Works on Tuesday had passed water quality and safety tests," the company said.

'Safe to drink' advice leaflets have also been hand-delivered by members of the water company to customers who were affected.                                

Northumbrian Water’s Water Director Keith Haslett said: “We’re very sorry for any inconvenience or concern that this has caused local people, businesses and communities and would like to thank the people of Darlington for their support and understanding over the last couple of days.

“Thankfully incidents of this nature are incredibly rare for us and our customers, but I’d like to reassure everyone that we’ll be doing everything we can, learning from this incident, to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

Penny Spring, Director of Public Health for Darlington, said: “This is great news and I fully support this decision by Northumbrian Water to remove the precautionary notice to boil water, in line with expert advice from a range of partners.”