Following the restoration of water supplies to communities impacted by Storm Arwen, Scottish Water is continuing to work with its emergency response partners to assist with welfare support in the most affected areas of the country.

Three Water Treatment Works and eight pumping stations are currently operating with generator power. Engineers remain on standby to respond quickly to any localised issues that arise and to minimise any impact on customers when the sites' normal electricity supplies are restored.

In the north-east, Scottish Water's team who were previously focused on bottled water distribution have been supporting wider door-to-door customer welfare checks. It is lso supporting local authority partners in Aberdeenshire, Angus and Perth & Kinross by supplying bottled water for distribution to customers with Private Water Supplies until their power supplies are restored.

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Kes Juskowiak, Water Operations General Manager for Scottish Water, said: "I would like to thank customers and communities for their patience and support while our teams were working hard to restore service as quickly as possible. The aftermath of the storm, with continuing winter weather conditions, has been a hugely difficult experience for many people - and we are mindful that some still remain without all the essential service they need.

"We have been enormously grateful for all the support and assistance we have had from emergency response partners and communities while we were focused on restoring water supplies. We will continue to offer as much support as we can in return while some residents are still in need of assistance."

Since the peak of the storm on Friday night, engineers have restored supplies to over 18,000 homes and businesses that were initially without water across Aberdeenshire, Moray, Angus, Perthshire, Stirlingshire, the Borders and Dumfries & Galloway.

Ahead of the storm hitting, the power supply for 43 Water Treatment works (WTW) was supplemented with generators on a precautionary basis. Generators were used at a further 15 sites as the full impact of the storm on the electricity network became clear, with supply for around 1.5 million customers being maintained in this way at the peak of disruption.

A fleet of 22 road tankers operated across the affected regions to sustain water supplies wherever possible and support faster recovery of affected water networks.

Bottled water was also distributed to the most affected customers and communities, with direct delivery to care homes and priority service customers, as well as community collection points and SSEN welfare units.