Severn Trent Water are urging residents to call a plumber after their emergency helpline has been inundated with calls about customers' burst pipes.

People are waiting for up to an hour and a half to speak to customer service operators, but many cannot be helped by the water company as they are having problems with their internal plumbing.

Severn Trent Water’s senior operations manager Fraser Pithie said: “Customers are hanging on the line for 60 to 90 minutes waiting to get through to us, but unfortunately we can’t help them with internal pipework problems.

"Please, if you have a burst pipe, don’t call us – we can’t help you and you need to call a plumber. We need to be able to focus our resources on attending to external pipework problems such as bursts and loss of supply to multiple properties.

“Much as we appreciate how distressing a pipe burst inside the home is for customers, like frozen pipes, this isn’t something that Severn Trent can help with, so please, don’t call us about it.”