Water supplies were restored after a large burst water main in West Molesey, Surrey, forced several schools and nurseries to close and left thousands of properties without service, Thames Water said.
The company said on Monday afternoon that engineers had isolated the broken pipe and were working on a permanent repair. It said all customers should see their water supply restored shortly if it had not already returned, although some could experience low pressure.
Thames Water initially said up to 15,000 properties had been affected. It later said that figure had fallen to 6,000. The affected postcodes were CR4, KT1, KT10, KT12, KT2, KT3, KT5, KT6, KT7, KT8, SM4, SW16, SW17, SW18, SW19, SW20, TW10 and TW16.
The company said a bottled-water station would still open in the afternoon for customers who needed it, with its location to be confirmed. It apologised for the outage and thanked customers for their patience.
### Schools close during outage
Esher Sixth Form College in Thames Ditton said its campus was closed on Monday, September 28, because of a major water outage affecting the KT10 area. It told students and staff to return home or remain at home until further communication through Teams.
The Holy Cross School in New Malden, south London, also announced that it would close because of a local water-supply issue affecting the school site. Thames Ditton Infant School and Long Ditton Infant and Nursery School in Surrey likewise said they were shut for the day.
Residents described the disruption on X, with some saying they had woken up without running water. One user said the outage was having a “huge impact already”.
Monica Harding, the MP for Esher and Walton, said on X that her constituency was affected. She told the Press Association that water had reportedly been leaking at a rate of 750 litres per second at about 6.30am, although the supplied report did not independently verify that figure.
“We need an urgent response from Thames Water to get water supplies back on as soon as possible and to protect vulnerable communities,” Harding said. She added that the cause of the incident should be established once supplies had been restored.
Harding also said she was concerned that “decades of underinvestment in our infrastructure and poor regulation” could be contributing to incidents of this kind.
Paul Kohler, the MP for Wimbledon, said he had contacted Thames Water after reports of an outage in Wimbledon, New Malden, Raynes Park and Morden.
### Wider criticism of Thames Water
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey described the disruption faced by households as “yet another example” of Thames Water failing its customers.
Davey said Thames Water was already the worst water company in England and Wales for leaky pipes, claiming that it lost an average of 592 million litres of water each day. He also said that 28% of customers’ bills went towards servicing the company’s debt rather than repairing infrastructure. Those figures were presented as part of his criticism of the company and were not independently verified in the supplied report.
“The final whistle needs to be blown on Thames Water, and (Prime Minister Andy) Burnham needs to get a grip,” Davey said.
The outage also prompted renewed calls for public ownership. A straw poll conducted at the entrance to the Labour Party conference in Liverpool recorded 99 of 100 votes in favour of public ownership of Thames Water. The event was organised by campaign group We Own It.
Sophie Conquest of We Own It said the choice was between “hedge funds or households” and argued that the Government should bring the company into public hands.
Thames Water said its engineers remained at the site in West Molesey and were continuing work on the permanent repair. Although the company said supplies had been restored or were expected to return shortly, it warned that some customers might still experience low pressure.
