Thousands of people have had their water supply cut off due to technical issues at a Thames Water treatment works.
The regular updates from Waverley Leader Paul Follows have been described by residents as “simply amazing.” The latest is at the bottom of this post.
Just days after it announced :
**Thames Water plans to cut 300 jobs after ‘challenging year’
Waverley Leader {aul Follows said up to 10,000 homes were affected, but Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, who always gets his sums right, says 13,500 have lost water supply and more are expected to be cut off shortly.
Although Thames Water notified customers in GU3, GU5, GU6, GU7 and GU8 that they had no water, some did, and some didn’t lose supply. Se taps dribbled water, and some residents called out plumbers due to rattling pipes.
Thames Water apologised to those around Godalming, Surrey, who were affected and said Shalford treatment works had been affected following issues “caused by Storm Ciarán”.
The problem is the swollen river water That hit the Shalford Water Works following the recent heavy rainfall. This resulted in it being completely shut down. According to experts, it could take some time to get the works up and running again as water treatment works are very sensitive biological processes. Workers must build enough capacity into the three reservoirs that feed the areas mentioned to get the pressure up again.
Long queues built up for a bottled water station, set up in Godalming Crown Court car park after people lost supply on Saturday afternoon.
The site controls at Shalford Water Treatment Works have been reset, and they’re testing turbidity at low water production volumes,”
If this is successful, they can increase production to a level that will restore supply.”
Waverley Borough Council leader Paul Follows said he believed between 5,000 and 10,000 homes were affected, while Mr Hunt said 13,500 homes were off supply, with a further 6,500 expected to be cut off shortly.
The major incident has had a significant effect on local businesses, including pubs and restaurants forced to close.
As well as Godalming, residents in the nearby villages of Milford, Witley and Bramley reported outages.
A second bottled water station has also been set up at Artington Park and Ride on Old Portsmouth Road, Guildford.
Both water stations were open until late on Sunday
Supermarkets said people were panic buying bottled water, and Waitrose in Godalming said it was sold out.
As traffic in the town built up, Mr Follows urged people who did not need to go out and get bottled water to avoid doing so.
“Try and carpool so there is not excessive traffic,” he said.
Thames Water said it was doing everything possible to get things back to normal quickly.
It said it was “continuing to work hard to restore supplies as soon as possible”.
“In the meantime, we have a fleet of tankers pumping water into the local pipe system,” the supplier said in a statement.
Thames Water is set to axe 300 roles after an “extremely challenging year”.
The GMB union said it had been told 140 people were at risk of redundancy, including 89 retail roles and 39 digital jobs. The other positions are currently vacant, the water firm said.
The union blamed the company, saying public money had been “drained from the system”.
But Thames Water said the plan was necessary, adding it would seek to minimise compulsory redundancies.
Thames Water, the leading supplier across Surrey, Berkshire and Oxfordshire, employs about 8,200 people across its business.
It has come under heavy criticism over sewage discharges and supply disruption.
“Record £1.8 billion investment in our assets” (Thames Water Annual Report 22/23) A great pity this didn’t include their Shalford Water Treatment Works.
What a disgrace Thames Water should be called to explain to the regulator why their system failed. Thames Water is a statutory planning consultee unfortunately its interface with planning authorities is insufficiently robust and lacks efficacy Thames Water must confirm if this was a known capacity issue.
Climate change has delivered the atmospheric rivers in the sky that bring heavy rains, they are a known consequence that must be controlled and mitigated. An extremely challenging year would normally require more staff rather than less.
This whole sorry saga is an absolute disgrace. Jeremy Hunt boasted a few months back how he had persuaded Sarah Bentley the CEO of Thames Water to investigate a strange whiff coming from the Bramley Petrol Station, perhaps he should pull rank and get whoever replaced her to investigate the broken infrastructure in Waverley, which is having massive consequences for the many thousands of residents affected. We have been contacted by Godalming residents who are forced to leave their hones and seek refuge in the West Country. Shocking – is this 2023 or 1823?