Thousands warned not to use 'high chlorine' water

Severn Trent has warned thousands of customers not to use water while it investigates problems with high levels of chlorine in its supply.

The water company said it is investigating an issue at the Castle Donington reservoir in Derbyshire.

It has told residents in the DE11, DE15, DE65, DE73 and LE65 areas of Derbyshire and Leicestershire not to use water for anything.

A total of 3,560 properties have been affected.

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Severn Trent, which uses chlorine in its filtration process to make water clean enough for drinking, said it does not know how long it will take to resolve the problem.

"It looks like there's been over-chlorination," a spokesman said.

"Once we've got through this incident and we've flushed the water through the system, we can go back, take a look and see exactly what happened.

"A Do Not Use notice means that customers shouldn't use their water supply for anything - including drinking, preparing food and bathing."

The company, whose website crashed earlier due to the demand for information, was alerted to the problem by a monitoring systems alarm.