Flood zone: the burst water main in Mitcham affected supplies to much of north Croydon and Streatham
A burst water main in Mitcham this morning disrupted water supplies to households across five postcodes in Croydon and Streatham.
Croydon Council described the burst main as “a major incident”.
The water main burst was on Commonside East, near Mitcham Common.
Much of the supply problem was due to a fault at a Thames Water booster station, which left some without any water, or low water pressure.
“We’re sorry if you have no water in the CR0, CR2, CR4, CR7 and SW16 areas,” Thames Water tweeted this morning.
“This is due to a fault at our local booster station. We’re working to restart the pumps as quickly as possible, which will begin returning the water supply to the area.”
‘Major incident’: Croydon Council’s response was to direct the public to another website
Four hours later, the privatised utility was saying that, “Our teams are on-site working hard to fix the burst.”
By 2pm, Thames Water was saying: “We’re sorry if you’re still experiencing low water pressure or no water.
“We’ve managed to stop the water escaping and we’re currently removing any excess water from the area before starting our repair. We’re adding water back into our pipes using tankers, so as many customers as possible can turn on their taps again.
“Tankers are large vehicles filled with water, which you may see parked in your area,” they explained, somewhat patronisingly.
Bad timing: the environment secretary appeared oblivious to what was happening in his constituency today
“You should start seeing water return to your taps, although you may still have lower than usual water pressure.
“We know how disruptive it is if you lose your water supply, so we’ll work hard to get things back to normal as soon as we can.
“As soon as we know more, we’ll be back with an update, and this will be no later than 5pm. Thank you for your continued patience.”
Meanwhile, with thousands of his Streatham and Croydon North constituents without a supply of water or with low water pressure, Steve Reed OBE, the anti-nationalisation environment secretary, chose this afternoon to boast on Twitter “Labour halts Tory water rationing crisis”.
Read more: MP Reed shown a yellow card for cosying up to water lobbyists
Read more: Reed took £1,786 football tickets from water company owners
Read more: #TheLabourFiles: MP Reed, Evans and the Croydon connection
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