WATER companies in the region are using divining rods to locate underground water pipes, an Oxford University scientist has established.

Sally Le Page, an evolutionary biologist at Oxford University, said her parents "couldn't believe their eyes" when the technician they called to their property from Midlands water company Severn Trent began slowly walking around holding two "bent tent pegs" to locate the mains pipe.

The ancient technique of dowsing, using diving rods, has been used for hundreds of years to find underground water supplies.

Typically, a dowser will hold the rods, usually shaped like the letter Y, while walking over land and being alert for any movement or the rods crossing in the belief that this could indicate the presence of water underground.

Ms Le Page tweeted Severn Trent "to see if they knew that one of their technicians was using equipment that is known not to work" and the company replied: "We've found that some of the older methods are just as effective than the new ones, but we do use drones as well, and now satellites."

She then contacted other water companies and said nine of them, including Yorkshire Water, all confirmed that their technicians occasionally used divining rods.

Writing on the website Medium, Ms Le Page said: "I can't state this enough: there is no scientifically rigorous, doubly blind evidence that divining rods work.

"You could just laugh this off.

"Isn't it a bit silly that big companies are still using magic to do their jobs!

"Except if they get it wrong, that could mean the difference between an entire town having safe drinking water or not.

"If they use divining rods to decide that there isn't a pipe underneath and so it's safe to dig there, they could rupture the mains water supply for thousands of people.

"Not to mention the cost of sending out a 'trained' technician to examine a site for several hours, only to get no valuable information.

"Money that comes from the UK homeowners who have no choice over which water company to use.

"Maybe it's time to leave the magic and divination to Harry Potter."

Yorkshire Water said it was rare for divining rods to be used in its work, as there was much more effective technology at the disposal of staff. 

Dave Stevenson, head of water distribution at Yorkshire Water, said: "We prefer to explore high-tech solutions to help us tackle leakage such as satellite detection, drones to survey our pipework, and thousands of acoustic listening devices that will help us identify leaks in our underground network and fix them more quickly and effectively.

"Divining sticks are rarely used these days with so much better, twenty-first century technology out there."

A spokesman from Northumbrian Water said they did not train or instruct their staff to use divining rods.

“Northumbrian Water technicians do not use dowsing rods in order to locate water and water pipes but instead favour a more scientific approach based on industry best practice which involves using detailed electronic mapping systems, equipment and technology.

“We find this approach to be much more useful, and successful, as it allows to identify and locate leaks on pipes quickly and resolve problems with minimum disruption to our customers and our networks.”

A Severn Trent spokesman said they used detailed mapping systems to identify where its network of pipes, adding: "To track down exactly where leaks on our pipes are we use an array of cutting-edge technology.

"Just recently we've begun using satellite data and imagery to monitor our pipes from space and we regularly use drones to spot leaks from the air.

"We don't issue divining rods to our engineers but we believe some of our engineers use them.

"As long as the leak is found and repaired quickly, by whatever means, we're happy and so are our customers."