Updated: Residents of a village near York advised to boil their water due to ‘bacteria issue’

Residents in one area of York have been told to boil their water before they drink it tonight (Monday).

During a routine test Yorkshire Water has found a potential issue in the supply to Elvington village (YO41).

The advice is you can still use your water to wash, clean and flush your loo – but until further notice they’ve taken the precautionary measure to ask you to boil your water before you drink it.

A Yorkshire Water spokesperson said: “We regularly check our drinking water to make sure it meets our high standards and during one of these routine tests we’ve found a potential bacteria issue in Elvington near York.

“While we investigate this, as a precaution we’re advising that customers who live in Elvington boil their water before drinking or using it for cooking.

“We’re sorry about this, but we’re taking the precautionary approach to keep everyone safe. We’re directly notifying the residents who are impacted, and we’ll be providing updates on our website.

“The bacteria is not usually harmful to health but until we’ve done extra sampling we’re taking this approach as a precaution.”

Yorkshire Water is still undertaking extra tests to understand when we can lift this precautionary advice to allow everything to return to normal.

The spokesperson said: “We need to wait for two days of clear test results before we can do this.

“It can take up to 20 hours for our lab to fully test the samples, so once we have received the test results for the samples taken today then we can provide an update. 

“We expect this to be tomorrow (Wednesday) lunch time.

“In the meantime, our colleagues are busy in the area providing bottled water to those who need it and answering any questions that residents may have.”

Updates will appear here