Daily Mail

MILLIONS TOLD TO RATION WATER

Burst pipes fiasco after big thaw

- By Sean Poulter and Fionn Hargreaves

MILLIONS of families were told to ration their use of water last night.

The thaw after the big freeze has caused havoc – with burst pipes cutting off supplies to homes across the country.

And a number of schools will not open today because they have no water. Suppliers have effectivel­y told up to 13million people across London and the South to curb their use of water or risk having none at all. In a joint statement, Thames Water, South East Water, Southern Water and Affinity Water urged customers to avoid running the taps for ‘anything that isn’t essential’.

They said tens of thousands of homes were either without water or had low pressure. Families were advised to take short showers rather than baths and run washing machines and dishwasher­s only with a full load.

‘This will make a real difference,’ last night’s statement said.

The warning enraged customers and one told Thames Water: ‘With all the money the users pay you, you could invest it in infrastruc­ture repairs not fat cats’ pockets.’

United Utilities, which services

North West England, said it was battling with low pressure problems and supply loss. Firms have been accused of failing to invest properly in mains pipes and sewer systems.

Environmen­t Secretary Michael Gove also complained about excessive executive salaries and paying huge dividends to shareholde­rs.

Last night Thames Water admitted that about 20,000 homes had been cut off and it was distributi­ng emergency supplies.

South East Water, which serves much of Kent and Sussex, confirmed a large number of burst mains. Southern Water reported problems in the Sittingbou­rne area of Kent.

Severn Trent, which serves much of the West of England, said staff were working round the clock to fix hundreds of burst pipes caused by the sudden change in temperatur­e. Bristol Water also reported that many postcodes across the city were without water last night.

Twitter was full of complaints about supply problems.

One user said: ‘This water crisis in South London is getting out of hand. Third day running with no water.’

Alice Williams tweeted that she had been without water for more than 12 hours, but by the time she was able to reach an emergency water bottle station, it had run out.

She added: ‘All we get is PR lines but no real info from Thames Water.’ Another user, Cam, tweeted: ‘There’s no water in north London and Thames is handing out bottles like it’s a third world country.’

A Thames Water spokesman said the impact of the weather was ‘unpreceden­ted’. He added: ‘We’ve seen an increase in leaks and bursts on our network, which we are urgently dealing with as fast as we possibly can.

‘But the sudden and widespread surge in demand, coinciding with the rise in temperatur­es, means we also need to urge all our customers to check their own pipes for bursts and call a plumber if necessary.

‘We are getting as much extra water into our network as we can and sincerely apologise to customers who are currently without water or who have low pressure.’ Severn Trent said: ‘We want to say sorry to everyone affected by these bursts – we’re working as quickly as we can.’

Among schools to shut were Dunraven in south London and Brize Norton in Oxfordshir­e. The National Grid had to issue a warning last week that Britain was close to running out of gas.

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