Many residents woke up to a reduced water supply or low pressure in their taps due to complications at the Netley Mill water treatment works, which serves 8,500 properties in Cranleigh and surrounding villages. Thames Water said it was doing everything it could to restart supplies, but in the meantime it had set up three hubs where local people could get bottled water and would open more if there was demand for it. It advised that the supplies were for “basic use such as drinking, cooking and washing hands” and urged people to be careful, taking only what they need. “If you have a neighbor who can’t get to a water station, let us know and we’ll do our best to make sure our limited supplies are distributed fairly,” he added in a statement. Jeremy Hunt, MP for Surrey South West, said he had “grave concerns” about the water cut and contacted Thames Water chief executive Sarah Bentley on Saturday morning. Archie Bland and Nimo Omer take you to the top stories and what they mean, free every weekday morning Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising and content sponsored by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Households in the GU5, GU6, RH4, RH5 and RH12 postcodes have been affected by the issue, which came a day after drought was officially declared in eight areas of England. Welsh Water, Southern Water and South East Water have imposed tube bans, while Yorkshire Water’s restrictions will come into effect on August 26. Thames Water admitted this week that its efforts to cut water waste are not as effective as it had hoped and it is wasting more than 635 million liters of water a day. The company is expected to introduce a tire ban in the coming weeks, hitting 15 million people in London and the surrounding areas. Rising temperatures have fueled blazes across the country, with four fire engines battling a blaze in Derbyshire on Friday, while firefighters were also called to blazes in east London and Dorset. The hot weather prompted the Met Office to issue an orange heat warning as the UK could see temperatures of up to 35 degrees over the weekend.
