TEXT messaging is the latest technology to be used by Severn Trent Water in its battle against leaks.

The company is turning to text messaging with a £2.6m scheme designed to monitor 46,000 kilometres of water pipes.

High tech telecom units will be mounted on nearly 4,500 meters, to assess the water flow through the network and send daily text messages to a central computer, indicating any likely leaks.

The Cello loggers, including the standard SIM card found in hand-held mobile phones, will replace the existing loggers.

At present the meters are read manually and data is stored in a hand-held device, which is downloaded weekly to a central computer.

Many of the meters are difficult to get to, which makes tracking the system more difficult.

Work on installing the new system throughout Worcestershire starts this week and is thought to be the most intensive application of text technology anywhere in the country.

It will not cover the 600,000 domestic meters measuring customers' supplies.

"Most leaks now are the difficult to track, underground leaks," said Martin Kane, head of the company's networks operation.

"The new monitoring system will report daily on what's happening in its area, allowing us to track potential invisible leaks much more quickly.

"Once they are all up and running later this year we could save as much as an extra one million gallons of water a day."