20/03/2008

A sharp-eyed customer from the North East has won a sparkling prize package worth hundreds of pounds.

Lynnette Webster, from Darlington, entered Northumbrian Water’s Spot the Van competition after seeing one of the vans near her home.

Lynnette is to have her £300 water and sewerage bill paid for a year, and has also won an energy efficient white good.

The competition challenged customers across the region, from Berwick down to North Yorkshire and across to the Pennines, to spot one of Northumbrian Water’s new fleet of 55 vans that have been re-branded as part of a drive to promote the excellent quality of tap water in the North East.

Receiving her prize from the driver of the winning van, Paul Hill, who lives in Hartlepool and works as a meter reader based at Northumbrian Water’s head office in Durham, Lynnette said: “I’m thrilled to have won.

“I first noticed a van near my home one Tuesday afternoon. It stood out because of its brightly coloured graphics. When I read about the competition in the newspaper the following day, I thought ‘I could have won that!’

“As luck would have it, I then saw another van on my road the next Friday so I ran upstairs, grabbed my digital camera and took a photo.”

The brightly-branded vans show a picture of 32 year old employee, Joanne Robertson, clutching a glass of tap water, accompanied by the slogan: ‘Clearly thirst class! Top quality water – I’ll drink to that!’”

The North East has among the best quality tap water in the country, with 99.9% of tens of thousands of water quality samples meeting strict standards set by the Government Drinking Water Inspectorate (DWI), higher than the national average.

For further information please contact Leanne Clough on 0191 301 6733.