SPECIALISTS have been called to a block of retirement flats in Bournemouth as elderly residents have been left without running water for more than six days.

Residents living in the Restharrow block of flats in Lansdowne Gardens cannot shower or flush the toilet and only have access to bottled drinking water due to a water leak.

The leak has now been identified underneath the building and specialists have been called in to fix the issue.

Resident John McCoy said: “We’ve had social services here, we’ve had environmental health here, at least four managers from First Port here, the bottled water has been endless.

“Obviously we’ve still not got any running water, the power’s been sorted out today but there’s still a problem with the lifts, the lifts are not working.

“They’ve identified where the leak is now after all that digging up at the front, they’ve had to put it all back together because the leak wasn’t there and apparently it’s actually under the building, they've got some specialist people in to identify the leak with special equipment and it's actually inside the building.

“I know it’s still not acceptable but we’ve just got to suck it up, at least they’re trying.

“I’ve actually had the operations manager turn up today and he said, ‘I'm going to look you in the eye and I promise you we’re going to sort it out’, so that’s fantastic.”

Southern Drainage and Water representative Ryan Tottle who was hired to search for the leak outside, said: “We’ve managed to locate the leak to be inside the building now, which we found from doing the gas tests so the leak detection specialists who were organised to find it when we couldn't, have been called in.

“The specialists have found the leak inside but due to the fact that there’s a membrane beneath the concrete floor, the gas is being pushed to the side of the membrane and it’s difficult to locate.

“We’ve returned the water pressure back to how it was originally before we came out, which is still very low but at least they’re getting a trickle of water coming through the taps, so we’re just doing all we can now to get it located inside now with the other contractor.

“It’s very difficult to get an exact location on it. But we should know a bit more tomorrow.”