Thames Water are now being more cooperative but the information provided is not accurate - Please keep informing CRRA of when water leaks occur, how long they go on for and an accurate post code location.

Please join our rapidly growing community facebook page (click here)

For some time Chigwell Row Residents Association (CRRA) have been reporting on the diabolical levels of water interruption in Chigwell Row and the surrounding areas. Over the last five years this has become quite debilitating for local residents, who have complained to CRRA about health and welfare concern associated with these outages.  

Initially Thames Water were providing non-committal answers.  However, since we altered our approach and began listing post codes and numbers of residents calling in, they have changed their tune and are providing more detailed responses.  

Unfortunately, this has highlighted another issue.  They seem to be administratively challenged and have expressed today that the repair work on Lambourne Road last week, only took 1 day.  Whereas we are sure many local residents are aware that the works took over 5 days to complete. 

Here is their response:

Our Ref: 33461487

 

Water supply interruption

Dear Mr Chowdhry

Thanks you for your emails dated 23 and 26 October 2020, providing me with the articles you had previously referred to and dates of the no water and low pressure incidents. I haven't called you today as you advised previously before you would prefer written correspondence.

I appreciate you'd like us to look into the cause of the no water and low pressure the area has experienced however, in order for us to do this you need to provide us with the exact address of the properties which were affected as well as the dates. Only when we have this information, I can reach out to our Water Supply Interruption Team to review this for you.

Our recent work

I've looked into your concerns regarding the work we completed in Lambourne Road, IG7 6JT. This leak was reported under the reference 31528654 on 22 October 2020. When we investigated we found a leak on 5 inch main. Before we were able to work on site, we had to obtain traffic management to ensure our staff were safe on site.  

However, our records confirm we completed the repair the same day this was reported to us, within 12 hours. I'm sorry for any inconvenience caused by this, however this was emergency works and we had to complete this, to prevent people in the area being left without water permanently. 

We're not currently working on Manor Road, but we are working on Woodland Road (IG7 4GL), under the reference 0041/81QVZY. We're were working here to repair the sewer. However, I can confirm we've now completed the work and the site has been cleared. I'm not able to provide you with anymore information about this job as this relates to a private asset, not owned by us and would breach the Data Protection Act.

We are writing to Thames Water to seek clarification on why they are suggesting the work was complete in 24 hours, which it was not. It may simply be a bluff based on the fact that our water interruption was repaired within 12 hours, whereas the complete remedial works themselves including repair to the dug roads was completed days later. 

Let's see what response we get and hope that this public shaming will result in a programme of major reworking of the existing victorian infrastructure. 

Once they stop responding, we will take the matter up with Ofwat and CCW, to ramp up pressure for our campaign.

Rather bizarrely, if Thames Water had bothered to read our  two most recent posts click (here) and (here) they would have noticed the pictures we took of the work on Lambourne Road were taken over a span of days.  This is clear evidence that the scheduled work took way longer than the 1 day have indicated in their response.

Please continue to share reports with us and do sign our growing petition (click here)