Residents living in a high rise flat in Port Glasgow were left without running water for three days

River Clyde Homes faced a crisis in Heather Court when the water pumps packed in last Thursday.

It meant residents were unable to get a constant supply into their flats.

Engineers were called in on Friday trying to fix the problems and managed to get one pump up and running.

With Inverclyde enjoying a heatwave, housing association staff had to be drafted in to deliver water bottles on every floor.

A 73-year-old resident, who asked not to be named, said: "We had no drinking water from Thursday.

"They did get it working again but we didn't know very much more about what had happened.

"They kept us supplied with bottled water but I was unable to have a shower.

"This has never happened in the flats before."

Other residents also reported problems but some said that they had water left from the tank and were less affected than others.

River Clyde Homes later put up a notice to advise tenants that the problem had been fixed.

Heather Court is one of three high rise flats in the town centre and it was recently refurbished.

David Falla, head of asset planning and development at River Clyde Homes, said: “We were alerted to an outage of the water supply at a flat within Heather Court around midday on Thursday and an emergency plumber attended the property within the hour.

"By this time it was evident that the issue was more widespread.

"Whilst our technical teams worked to identify the cause of the problem, colleagues delivered emergency water supplies to residents.

“Our investigations indicated a failure with a pump supplying Heather Court and extensive efforts were made to repair the pump in situ.

"However, it became clear that a replacement was required for one of the units.

"As the technical teams worked to resolve this issue, housing officers made multiple visits to residents to deliver further water supplies, provide updates and check on vulnerable residents.

“Water was fully restored to the block by 2pm on Saturday when the replacement pump came online.

"We recognise that this outage will have caused considerable inconvenience for our customers at Heather Court and appreciate their patience whilst the emergency replacement was carried out, and the positive feedback we have had about the efforts of our team.”

Town councillor Jim MacLeod says he will seek assurances from RCH that supplies will not be interrupted again.

He said: "I think it is a concern if the residents, who are mainly elderly, were unable to get washed or have a shower easily.

"It is not great in the heat as well because everyone needs to be hydrated.

"This is very unfortunate."