Burst water main hits homes and closes schools

Thousands of properties left without water should have it restored "shortly" as repairs are set continue around the clock.

As many as 15,000 properties were left without water or with low pressure in Surrey and London after a burst main disrupted supply.

Thames Water said it had rerouted water around its network for customers.

The firm apologised for the outage, adding it had "isolated" the burst main in Molesey, which hit Thames Ditton, Esher, and Sunbury, other parts of Surrey and south London.

Long Ditton Infant and Nursery School and Thames Ditton Infant School, in Surrey, said they had closed for the day due to the problem, first reported at about 05:15 BST.

Thames Water had said it would "likely take some time to fix", but the number of customers affected had fallen to 6,000.

Jane Allen, from West Molesey, said she was woken by a text from her next door neighbour at about 07:30 telling her about the outage.

"We have none at all, it didn't even trickle out a bit," she said.

"I have six bottles of water in the house, which will be fine for drinking but we won't be able to do anything else.

"I think it will be awful [but] my next door neighbour's mother is 90, so it will be much worse for her than it will be for me."

Helen Ryder, who runs a flower shop in Thames Ditton, said: "Our priority is to make sure staff have water, but we need to make sure the flowers do too."

Thames Water said it would deliver water to registered vulnerable customers and open bottled water stations.

Esher and Walton MP Monica Harding said she was "pushing for an urgent response" to the outage.

She told BBC Radio Surrey: "I was first made aware of it on my street WhatsApp group this morning when it went crazy to say there's no water anywhere.

"We just need to get that water flowing."

The MP told the Local Democracy Reporting Service the "whole of the Wilderness is flooded" in Molesey.

"The teams working on the pipes have been brilliant, they've been working really hard but they are dealing with the fallout of a failed infrastructure," she said.

At 11:25 Thames Water said its teams were on site and had begun rerouting water.

It added: "Those in the Surbiton area should now be seeing their water return, the pressure may be lower than normal, but this will return once we've fixed the broken pipe.

"Further water is being diverted into the area."

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey, MP for Kingston and Surbiton, called the outage "yet another example of Thames Water failing its customers".

Thames Water, the UK's biggest water company, owes roughly £20bn and has been working with creditors and government officials.

A report by the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (EFRA) Committee has urged the government to consider putting Thames Water into special administration, a form of temporary nationalisation.

Davey said "the final whistle needs to be blown on Thames Water".

The water company said it had invested £2.7bn in its infrastructure in 2025/26 and plans to increase this to £4bn by 2030.

It said: "We have isolated the burst main in Molesey and all customers should see their water supply restored shortly if it has not been already, although they may experience some low pressure.

"We are sorry for this morning's outage and would like to thank customers for the patience they have shown.

"A bottled water station will still be opened this afternoon for customers who require it and we will share its location once it is confirmed.

"Our engineers remain at the site and are working on a permanent repair."

The bottled water station is at Sandown Park Racecourse, in Portsmouth Road.

Additional reporting by the Local Democracy Reporting Service

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