Last July, I noticed water coming up through the pavement outside my house. I reported this to Thames Water. A month later, I’d heard nothing except for an automated acknowledgment, and the trickle had become a stream.
I was then promised an engineer would visit in the coming week. None came, so I called again. An engineer did arrive and said it was a simple job and would be sorted within a fortnight.
A date was scheduled but no one turned up. Since then, there have been about 15 dates booked and all have been missed.
Call centre staff always cite a lack of permit from the council, or the expiry of a permit from the council, or bad weather, or the inability to find a parking space.
During the recent cold spell, the stream turned into an ice rink.
The last appointment was for 21 December. This time, an engineer showed up, dug up the pavement, cut off our water supply with no warning and left again, leaving a note saying that the fix would be made by 27 December, potentially leaving us without running water over Christmas.
It was restored 11 hours later after my partner kicked off on Twitter but the leak has continued ever since.
SW, London
It was in July, when you first reported the leak, that Thames Water was fined £8.55m by the regulator Ofwat for failing to meet its commitments to reduce leakage. That’s the maximum automatic penalty and was imposed after leaks rose by 4% between 2016 and 2017. That averages out at 180 litres a day leaking from every property the company supplies.
Your photos show water flowing for several metres along the pavement and a paving slab rocking splashily as you step on it.
Thames Water declares that after “a series of investigations” – ie, three technicians turning up in six months – it identified a leak on your supply pipe. It claims the delays were caused by the fact its pipe runs under a Transport for London red route and landowners’ permission was required to access the supply.
This is curious on two counts: your road is a residential side street with no parking restrictions, not a red route, and no one had sought your permission to dig on your land.
Moreover, the first technician had declared the leak was in the stop valve under the pavement.
Finally, this month, the problem has been fixed. The bad news is, although the water has ceased flowing, the technician reckoned he could hear another leak, which will need investigating.
Ofwat says it expects companies concerned to quickly resolve any issues raised. “We believe water companies can go much further on leakage; that’s why we’ve challenged the sector to cut them down by up to 170bn litres a year – enough to meet the needs of Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool and Cardiff combined,” it adds.
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