Residents, including some who were vulnerable, had to queue for bottled water on Saturday in temperatures well above 30C (86F) after a pump broke down at the Netley Mill treatment works. By Sunday morning up to 1,000 homes were entering their third day without water. Supplies have been restored to up to 9,000 homes, but many households are still complaining of low water pressure. Thames Water apologized and confirmed it had distributed bottled water to residents in Guildford, Surrey Hills, Dorking and Horsham while engineers worked to restore the supply. Liz Townsend, Lib Dem county MP for Cranleigh and Ewhurst, called for Thames Water to be fined over the incident and said the company had failed to respond to numerous complaints about previous supply cuts. “We are absolutely outraged,” he said. “We had a period last summer where there was only bottled water. We had no water in February during the storm, we had no water in the previous hot spell in early July. And now another hot spell and we have no water. “Our water infrastructure is not resilient enough to cope with all the new housing and old pipes. Every time they increase the pressure in the system, we get more and more explosions. I’ve been in talks with Thames Water for 10 years and I’ve been to Westminster several times to raise it, but no one is taking it on board.” Townsend wrote to Sarah Bentley, chief executive of Thames Water, in July after a previous supply cut. The letter, seen by the Guardian, accused the company of taking months, and in some cases years, to repair the broken pipes and said it was flouting a public commitment to provide residents with updates on water supplies. Bentley has yet to respond. A statement from Thames Water said: “The Netley Mill water treatment works are now back in operation and the supply is gradually being restored to the local network. This will continue for the rest of the day. We are very sorry that customers have been affected especially during a period of high temperatures. “When supplies start coming back, we’re asking customers to try to use it for basic use only at first. This will help us get supplies back to everyone faster. We provide bottled water to customers we know need extra help. If anyone is unable to travel to a bottled water location, they should contact us on 0800 316 9800 and we will provide assistance.” Cranleigh is the last village left without water after the official drought declared in eight regions of England. Dozens of households in Northend, Oxfordshire have been dependent on bottled water alone for the past five days. Townsend said: “There was no water on Saturday for [between] 8,000 and 9,000 houses. We got a drizzle this morning. But between 500 and 1,000 households remain without water.” 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. Residents were told problems extracting water from a borehole meant two local reservoirs were completely empty and a third was only a quarter full. Townsend said Thames Water’s handling of the crisis was appalling. He said some vulnerable people on the priority list did not receive bottled water and farmers did not have water for livestock. He added: “There must be financial penalties. If they don’t deliver water, people should get refunds. We’ve got thousands and thousands of new homes coming into this area, and yet the basic water infrastructure can’t cope now with the existing number of homes.” Townsend also called for the renationalisation of failed water companies. “It’s such a precious and diminishing resource that maybe we should look at having more of a public ownership model for water,” he said. Three water companies – Welsh Water, Southern Water and South East Water – have all imposed pipe bans, while Yorkshire Water has announced a ban will start on August 26 and Thames Water is planning one in the coming weeks. An orange extreme heat warning remained in place on Sunday for large areas of the south, east, west, midlands and north of England for a fourth day.
