THERE were incredible scenes in the Tewkesbury when a burst water main led to huge queues forming for bottled water.

Several schools in the Tewkesbury area were also forced to close.

Severn Trent Water was providing bottled water for customers to collect at Tewkesbury's Morrisons supermarket and at Tewkesbury School until 10pm tonight.

A spokesman for the firm said: "We’ve been working really hard to get things back to normal, moving water around our network of pipes and bringing water into the area using our fleet of tankers, and we’re happy to say that customers are starting to see water supplies coming back on now.

"As it’s a wide area that’s been affected, it will take a few hours for the system to refill, so please bear with us.

"There may be some intermittent supplies or poor pressure overnight while we get everything sorted, so please don't worry.

"We've been using drones to find where the burst is and we've even have a helicopter out. We know where the burst pipe is, so we're now getting on with digging it out and getting it fixed."

Severn Trent has delivered bottled water to its vulnerable customers in the affected areas.

"We know how inconvenient this is and we're really sorry for the disruption that's been caused," the spokesman said.

Eleven schools in Tewkesbury were not open today because of the issue.

A spokesman for Severn Trent Water said: “We’re aware of water supply issues in the Tewkesbury area which may be affecting some of our customers in the GL19 and GL20 areas this morning.

“We believe this is being caused by a burst pipe and we’re working as quickly as we can to locate the problem so that we can get it fixed and return everything to normal.”

The closed schools are: Abbey View School; Carrant Brook Junior School; Deerhurst and Apperley C of E Primary SchoolSchool and pre school; Mitton Manor Primary School; Noahs Ark Children Centre - York Road Site; Northway Infant School; Queen Margaret Primary School; Tewkesbury CE Primary School; Tewkesbury School; John Moore Primary School; Tirlebrook Primary School and Twyning School.

Local people on social media were generally appreciative of the efforts Severn Trent Water had made to keep them informed and supply bottled water.