SOME residents in St Helens and Prescot have lost their water supply today due to an "electrical fault" at a pumping station.

United Utilities say that households in the WA9, WA10 and L34 postcode areas have been affected and experienced water coming out the tap slower or a complete loss of water supply.

An electrical fault in the area caused a local water pumping station to trip at Brownedge Pumping Station, resulting in an interruption to water supplies. 

At 2pm, United Utilities, said: "Our engineer has finished repairing the issue on Brownedge Pumping Station and the water should be starting to flow normally again.

"However it may take up to two hours for the water pressure to return to normal levels. We’re sorry if this has affected you and thank you for your patience.

"Because there’s been some disturbance to the pipes in your area you may notice the water is a little cloudy or discoloured, please check our Discoloured Water page for more information."

Shortly after midday, a previous statement said: "You may have noticed that the water is coming out of your tap slower than usual or may have gone off altogether. We have one of our inspectors looking into this at the moment and as soon as we know what the cause of the problem is we’ll let you know.

"We’re sorry about this and will try and get your taps flowing normally as quickly as we can. We’ll keep you posted as soon as we know what’s causing the problem."