When in a hole…:Thames Water had excavated in Teevan Road, before the main burst yesterday, causing the flood. Pic: Thomas Aelbrecht
PHOTOSTORY: pictures by iC reader THOMAS AELBRECHT. Words by our failing utilities correspondent, JR HARTLEY
In too deep: the sign is not meant to be ironic
The road had already been dug up. August, after all, is when so many roads get dug up. It’s supposed to help reduce disruption.
But that wasn’t the case on Teevan Road in Addiscombe yesterday, as thousands of gallons of water gushed out of a hole being dug by Thames Water. In a drought. With a hosepipe ban.
The water rushed down the residential street, which runs between Blackhorse Lane and Lower Addiscombe Road. The water was brown and muddy.
There’s been no rain in these parts for two months. But this was no help.
Some reports say that no households were flooded. There’s a sense that that’s just good luck – for the residents, but also for Thames Water.
Yesterday was already a “bad news” day for Thames Water, which seems to have bad news days most days of the week. It had been revealed that Britain’s biggest water utility, and the one with a deep well of corporate debt, has handed £1million signing-on fee to Steve Buck, its finance chief. You don’t think he took the job on for a laugh do you?
Thames Water has debts of approximately £20billion.
Inundated: the water was flowing in Addiscombe yesterday, though there were no reports of any homes flooded. Pic: Thomas Aelbrecht
Sky News was reporting yesterday, just around the time that the Teevan Road geyser was in full flow, that Thames Water made the delayed seven-figure payment to Buck, who joined the company in April 2025, at the end of last month.
The money was “drawn from an emergency borrowing facility”. The payment was disclosed in a letter sent last week to MPs on the environment, food and rural affairs select committee.
Thames Water loses approximately 570million litres of treated water every single day through broken and leaking pipes. This volume accounts for just under one-quarter of the company’s total daily water supply. So it’s not just executive pay where Thames Water is feeling a bit flush…
It was work to fix one of those troublesome leaks that was being undertaken in Addiscombe yesterday when something gave way.
Bucket list: it would be close to 8pm before Thames Water managed to fix the burst main on Teevan Road. Pic: Thomas Aelbrecht
“I’m aware of flooding on Teevan Road, Addiscombe, following a burst water main,” said Croydon’s part-time Mayor, Jason Perry.
Note that: “I’m aware.” Meaning: someone had told him.
Teevan Road is what, five minutes away from the Town Hall in the Mayor’s motor? A half-hour stroll in the summer sunshine. Not that Mayor Perry strolls anywhere much.
He culd have found out for himself. But Perry was “aware”. No visit to affected residents. No PR photoshoot. No ribbon cutting. Visiting the public in a street flooded by corporate incompetence was too much trouble for our £86,000 per year Mayor. He must have had more important things to do.
Council officials were “supporting the response”, Perry tweeted, without explaining what that might even mean.
“I’m told no homes are currently flooded.” See that again? “I’m told.”
A lorry went down Teevan Road at dusk last night to hoover up some of the flood water. Thames Water’s contractors had stopped the leak by then.
“Council officers will attend this morning to asses [sic] any cleansing requirements,” Perry wrote.
Resident Thomas Aelbrecht told Inside Croydon: “Two months without rain, a hosepipe ban, and thousands of gallons pouring down our street. I was the one who ended up calling the fire brigade.
”The water came close to entering a couple of houses before it was brought under control.”
Thames Water was approached for comment. The burst water main on Teevan Road, with hundreds of homes cut off from their water supply for the best part of the day, didn’t even warrant a line on Thames Water’s online incidents page today.
Continue reading: Customer care? With Thames Water, all you get is an AI shrug
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Croydon Council have no direct response for the water supply – that is the independent companies: Thames Water, Surrey and SSussex Water Company etc.
The Mayor can say “You are obliged to fix it.” I don’t think he has the power to say “Fix it.” ie to order them to do so.
If Thames Water hadn’t got to grips with the leak, to prevent water entering people’s homes, Perry could have laid down in Teevan Road and turned himself into a one-man flood barrier. That or used his omnipotence to bid the water to recede, as a latter-day King Cnut