Glan Clwyd running tap waste may have sent 1,166,400 litres down the drain at Ysbyty Glan Clwyd after a tap in the emergency department ran from 7 August until it was fixed on October 26. The leak was reported on 7 August, then left in place for 81 days.
At Let's Save Water's estimate of 10 litres a minute, the flow becomes 600 litres an hour and 14,400 litres a day. Over 81 days, that adds up to the hospital's potential loss of 1,166,400 litres, with Welsh Water's non-household rate putting the cost at £1,853.29.
Chris Evans and the video
Chris Evans, a Denbighshire County Council member, said a constituent sent him a video of the tap on 11 October. He said: "It sums up what is wrong with Betsi, that they can't even sort a running tap that's been running since August."
His intervention placed the incident in public view before Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board said the tap in Ysbyty Glan Clwyd's emergency department had been fixed on October 26. The hospital is in Bodelwyddan, Denbighshire, and the board manages the site.
Waterwise and Betsi Cadwaladr
Nicci Russell, chief executive of Waterwise, called it "an absolutely horrific waste of water when we can scarcely afford to be wasting water." She added: "The climate change committee is telling us drought is one of our top three climate risks."
She also said: "Our current water systems are not even fit for the current climate let alone what is coming - parts of Wales are still in drought." Russell said, "Identifying leaks of this kind is one part of the problem. This hospital clearly did identify it - it would be interesting to know how long it was before it was reported."
The board said any decision to remove the facility from use had to be balanced against potential impact on patient care. That left the tap operating in an emergency department while the issue was moving through the hospital's reporting and repair process.
Ysbyty Glan Clwyd repair
The timeline leaves one practical point hanging over the repair: the sticker by the tap showed the matter was reported on 7 August, but the article does not explain how long it ran before that report was made. What is clear is that the leak was still active when Evans received the video on 11 October and had been stopped by 26 October.
For patients and staff at Ysbyty Glan Clwyd, the immediate change is that the tap is no longer running. The wider lesson is starker: even a single broken fitting can turn into a large water loss when it is left in place for weeks rather than days.
