Tuesday morning, 26th August 2025. You wake up, stumble to the kitchen, turn on the tap. Nothing. Or maybe a trickle of brown water. Or just really low pressure that takes ages to fill a glass.
That’s what happened across massive chunks of Berwickshire. The Berwickshire tap water warning went out fast: don’t drink it, don’t cook with it, don’t even clean your teeth with it. Six thousand properties got told their water wasn’t safe anymore.
When Rawburn Broke Down
Rawburn Water Treatment Works near Duns supplies about 10,000 homes. On that Tuesday, something broke. Scottish Water called it a “fault” but didn’t explain what actually went wrong. They just shut the whole thing down.
The works normally pushes out seven million litres daily. When you suddenly stop that much water flowing, the knock-on effects are massive. Some areas got nothing at all. Others got intermittent supply. A few got water but it looked rank.
Duns, Eccles, Coldingham, Chirnside, Paxton, Coldstream, Burnmouth, Lamberton, Drone Hill, Birgham, Whitsome, Swinton, Leitholm – basically half of Berwickshire.
275 properties got bottled water delivered because they’re directly fed from Rawburn. But 6,000 homes? They had to sort themselves out.
What You Couldn’t Do
The list was ridiculous. No drinking tap water, obviously. But also no:
- Brushing teeth
- Making baby formula
- Preparing food
- Ice cubes
- Washing salads
- Preparing pet food
- Cleaning wounds
You could still flush toilets and wash dishes. You could shower, but would you? If they’re telling you not to drink it, getting in a shower with it feels dodgy.
Councillor Mark Rowley said he’d never seen a “do not cook” warning before. That’s how bad it was.
When Shops Run Dry
Within hours, every shop in the area had empty shelves where bottled water used to be. Cafés shut because you can’t make tea without water. Restaurants couldn’t cook. Hairdressers couldn’t wash hair.
One resident told The National: “Neighbours are dropping off supplies to each other.” That’s what happens in places like Berwickshire – people just get on with helping each other because nobody else will.
Scottish Water asked for volunteers in Chirnside to help deliver bottled water. They were that overstretched. East Berwickshire councillor James Anderson called it “all hands on deck”. He wasn’t wrong.
The Lorry Convoy Nobody Asked For
Scottish Water brought in over 20 tankers. They ran 24/7 for nearly a week, moving more than 12 million litres of water by road. That’s a lot of lorries rumbling through villages at two in the morning.
The noise was constant. But it kept the situation from getting worse, so locals dealt with it.
The network here is 370 miles of water mains and nine storage tanks. When you shut something that size down and try to restart it, stuff breaks. Secondary bursts happened during recharging. Each one caused more delays.
John Griffen from Scottish Water said it was “one of the biggest and most challenging incidents we’ve ever had in the Borders.” You don’t often hear water companies admit things are that serious.
Five Days of Buying Water
The warning went out Tuesday. Water didn’t get properly restored until Sunday, 31st August. Five days of queueing at shops for bottled water. Five days of heating water on the stove just to have a wash. Five days of driving to mates outside the area for a proper shower.
Farms got hit worst. Livestock need water. Dairy equipment needs washing. Some farmers brought in their own supplies just to keep operating.
Scottish Water lifted the “do not drink” part on Wednesday 27th, but supply problems went on for days. When water did come back, it was brown. Sometimes reddish. They said it was sediment disturbed by all the network repairs. They told people to run their cold tap at a trickle until it cleared.
Not everyone believed the water was safe, even after they said it was fine.
The Compensation Nobody Bothered With
September came. Scottish Water wrote to all 6,000 affected properties about compensation. They explained what people could claim and how to do it.
By mid-September, less than a quarter had actually claimed. Either the paperwork was too much hassle, or people didn’t understand they could claim, or they just wanted to forget it happened.
Kevin Roy from Scottish Water said they’d “informed all affected customers.” Informing people and people actually doing something about it are different things, though.
Perfect Timing for a Drought
The Berwickshire tap water warning happened during a summer that was already bone dry. By early September, SEPA had raised Berwickshire’s catchment to “Significant Scarcity.”
Months of barely any rain left rivers at critically low levels. Farmers using water for irrigation got told to stop. A treatment works failing right when water supplies were already under massive pressure – brilliant timing.
Heavy rain did fall over the August Bank Holiday, but not where it was needed. And even where it did rain, the ground was so dry it just soaked it up without refilling rivers or groundwater.
What It Cost
Scottish Water hasn’t said how much this costs them. But work it out: 20+ tankers for nearly a week, emergency crews, thousands of bottles delivered, compensation to 6,000 properties. It’s hundreds of thousands, easily.
The cost to businesses? A café closed for three days loses three days’ takings. A farm that can’t operate normally and has to buy in water – that’s money gone.
Where We Are Now
November 2025. Supplies in Berwickshire are back to normal. Taps work. Water’s safe. The treatment works is running again.
But Scottish Water still hasn’t said what actually broke. They’re investigating, they say. They’ll publish findings eventually. Residents want to know what went wrong and whether it’ll happen again.
Councillor Mark Rowley praised locals for helping each other, but he also pointed out that more people need to register with Scottish Water’s Priority Services Register. When this kind of thing kicks off, people on that register get contacted first and get help quicker. Loads of vulnerable people don’t have internet and missed all the updates.
What This Really Showed
We take tap water for granted. Turn tap, water comes out, job done. The Scottish Borders tap water issue showed how fast that can change. One fault at one treatment works and thousands of people are panic-buying bottled water.
Rawburn Water Treatment Works supplies a massive area. When something that is centralised breaks, the disruption spreads everywhere. Some people started asking whether the system needs backup supplies or alternative treatment works.
Climate change makes this worse. Less rainfall, more demand, knackered old infrastructure. That combination’s going to cause more problems unless someone invests serious money in water systems.
Scottish Water says they responded as fast as they could. Most locals agree they did their best. But five days without safe water is five days too long when you’ve done nothing wrong except live in an area where a treatment works broke down.
It’s over now. Taps flow. Water’s safe. But for 6,000 households across Berwickshire, that week in August will stick with them. It’s a reminder that even in Scotland, where it rains all the bloody time, clean drinking water isn’t guaranteed.