Storm Ciaran still causing havoc as 12,000 Brits stuck without running water

06 November 2023 , 08:22

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Bottles of water have been handed out to residents in Godalming, Surrey, after a major water outage over the weekend (Image: PA)

Thousands of Brits are still without water after Storm Ciaran hit a treatment plant in Surrey, a council leader has claimed.

Residents in parts of Surrey have been hit by the outage after the storm swept across the South last week, with Thames Water confirming it caused problems at Shalford water treatment plant. Paul Follows, leader at Waverley Borough Council, has hit out at the firm for "almost no communication".

He said that as many as 12,000 in the area were still without water after it cut out on Sunday: “Water infrastructure in this country is clearly crumbling. “I have certainly got questions for the county for not declaring a major incident much earlier," he told the programme on Monday, adding "I will certainly have questions for our MP about the state of water infrastructure in the local area because it is clearly failing."

Mr Follows told BBC Breakfast: “People have been quite upset… we’ve had almost no communications from Thames Water right from the start, so just actually trying to get basic information about what the problem is, how they’re resolving it and when it will be resolved, that has actually been the challenge.”

The outage has affected an estimated 12,000 people (PA)

Surrey County Council (SCC) declared a major incident on Sunday, saying staff were dealing with incidents involving reports of no water or low pressure. Thousands of bottles of water have been handed out to those without any supply.

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Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said on Sunday that Thames Water had told him that at least 13,500 homes had been affected on Sunday afternoon. David Bird, retail director for Thames Water, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Monday: “We absolutely accept that the quality of service that has been provided to our customers has not been at the level they would want, but obviously in this specific incident in Guildford it has been as a result of one of the biggest storms we’ve had in a decade.

“My focus today is making sure we are supporting all of our customers.” Mr Bird said the water network around Guildford posed a particular challenge as it was “in effect an island”, and that Thames Water had given out nearly half a million litres of bottled water to those affected.

He added the company was seeing improvements in the situation and hoped to get customers back on supply “in the very near future”. Mr Hunt, MP for South West Surrey which includes Godalming and the surrounding villages among the affected areas, said he was “very concerned” about the situation and tweeted that he would talk to a Thames Water executive.

After speaking to Alastair Cochran, Thames Water’s interim co-chief executive and chief financial officer, Mr Hunt posted a message on X, formerly Twitter, which said the firm was “resetting and reprogramming” the control system. The Chancellor later tweeted that the firm was “tankering water to ensure that they can support hospitals and bottled water stations remain open”.

Susie Beever