MORE than 4,000 homes were left without water on Sunday after a mechanical fault with a pumping station.

United Utilities spent more than two hours fixing a problem at the Knutsford booster station after receiving calls from town residents shortly after 10am.

The fault was mended before midday but some homes on the higher ground suffered without water until the evening.

Restaurants on The Moor side of King Street, for example Gusto, were unaffected by the lack of supply but some homes had to live without water for the best part of six hours.

And in that tim,e residents decided to head to the town’s supermarkets to stock up on bottled water, with shelves quickly becoming bare.

The Guardian received numerous emails from homeowners who believed their pipes were frozen because of the cold weather but instead, the lack of supply was down to United Utilities.

A spokesperson for United Utilities said: “We had some customers in the WA16 and SK11 area of Macclesfield who had problems with their water supply and that was due to a pump failure which happened mid morning.

“The pump is used to pump water to properties on higher ground and there was a mechanical fault with that. It was fixed but it did take quite a while for the water pressure to build up which is why some homes had low water pressure or none at all in the afternoon.

“We found that the last customers to get normal service were those on higher ground.

“We apologise to customers for the inconvenience they experienced on Sunday and the vast majority of customers had their supply back on by mid afternoon but some didn’t have their supply back until early evening.”

Jonathan Farber, of Malvern Road, told the Guardian he saw numerous people ‘panic buying’ water.

“I walked into Booths to pick up some provisions and saw people filling their trolleys with bottles of water,” he said.

“We had been out for a long walk so the children need to use the toilets there, sadly they were our of order due to water malfunction.

“Then I spotted a guy with a trolly stacked up with water bottles. The shelves were totally empty where the still water once stood. I honestly could not believe that people were actually panic-buying, it was obvious that United Utilities would not exactly leave Knutsford residents without water for long.”

How did you cope without your supply?

Talk about this on our website at knutsfordguardian.co.uk.