Scottish Water's crackdown on leakage in the North-east has saved 1.5 million litres of drinking water being lost every day from storage tanks at Ellon and Balmedie - the equivalent of over 18,000 baths every day.

Upgrades have been made at the tanks, known in the industry as "service reservoirs".

These help keep supplies flowing to customers' taps during any problems at treatment works or water main bursts.

The success at Ellon and Balmedie is part of a wider effort by Scottish Water.

It recently doubled the number of engineers and technicians to ensure that reducing leakage is a top priority for the business.

Since first being set targets by the industry regulator two years ago, reported leakage has been reduced in Scotland by 180 million litres a day.

Steven Law, Scottish Water's leakage manager for the North-east, said: "The tap water we supply our customers is a high quality, valuable product so it makes financial as well as environmental sense to prevent it being lost.

"This result at Ellon and Balmedie benefits the environment and our customers. We're looking at carrying out similar work in the Elgin and Keith areas next."

The service reservoirs at Ellon and Balmedie receive a blend of drinking water from the treatment works at Turriff which uses boreholes and the treatment works at Invercannie near Banchory which uses the River Dee.

The mechanical systems which prevent water overflowing when the service reservoirs are full were in need of maintenance.
The improvement work carried out means the systems are now reliable and efficient, helping prevent water being lost.