‘There’s a nagging fear’: the village that can’t rely on running water

theguardian.com:

Yvonne Hinde opens her fridge to reveal three big bottles of water. There are two buckets full in her garden. “We have to be prepared,” she says. She isn’t being dramatic. Like other residents of Everton in Bedfordshire, Hinde, 59, a childminder, can no longer take running water for granted.

Since the start of July the supply has been severely interrupted or cut off five times. Often the taps run dry for hours at a time. The problems have forced the pub to close and the village school to tell children to stay at home. “It makes life really difficult,” says Hinde, who is forced to close her business when the water isn’t running.

Amid extreme heat and a drought warning covering the region, Hinde and Everton’s other residents fear the situation will get worse. The village, in farmland between Bedford and Cambridge and home to about 500 people, is one of the hottest and driest spots in England.

Even before the record-breaking temperatures it had been struggling with its supply, because of old pipes that often burst and pumping equipment that villagers say cannot cope with demand.

Add to that the fact that the village is slightly uphill from the source at the end of a water line, and the heightened demand in the hot weather, and it’s a “perfect storm,” says Everton parish council chair Andy Simpson, 70, who regularly fills five five-litre containers with water to keep as a back-up supply.

“The extreme heat is a particular concern: the hotter the temperatures, the more people need water, and the more outages there are for us,” he says. “There’s this nagging fear all the time that the water isn’t going to be there.”

Many villagers have become accustomed to the lack of a reliable supply. Jo Neville, 54, a resident of 16 years, keeps