A busy crossroads could be dug up again after water workers forgot to reconnect a village Scout hut.

Scout and Guide leaders in Drighlington have been told they will be without running water until their supply can be unearthed at the junction of Bradford Road and Whitehall Road.

Leaders discovered the blunder after water works, which had taken three weeks, were completed in mid-December.

Since then all Scout, Guide, Cub and Brownie sessions have been cancelled - including Christmas and Millennium parties.

Today, a spokesman for Yorkshire Water apologised, adding: "There is a meeting planned to sort out the problem. We only heard about it on January 3 and we are trying our best to rectify it.

"We would like to apologise to the Scout group for the inconvenience and assure them that things will be sorted out quickly."

Assistant Beaver leader and committee member Beryl Horsfall said: "We can't open up because we don't have water to flush the loos.

"We postponed the Beaver Christmas party and turned it into a Millennium party for this Sunday which will have to be cancelled again if the situation isn't resolved.

"It's not fair on the kids and I'm sure drivers won't be happy because the last lot of roadworks caused real hold-ups.

"There were temporary traffic lights up and one day it took my husband 20 minutes to get through."

Mrs Horsfall said she understood Yorkshire Water had been renovating a water main which supplied houses and businesses near the junction and had mistakenly disconnected the Scout headquarters, which stands back from Whitehall Road.

She said: "When I first found out I thought we hadn't paid a bill and we'd been cut off.

"When I rang they told me to turn the stop-cock on and off five times but nothing happened."

Scout leader Richard Cook said he would tonight be taking a giant water carrier to the Scout headquarters to fill toilet cisterns so his Scouts could still meet.

But they will be the only group out of a total of eight to have used the headquarters.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.