Burst water main leaves 4,000 residents without water

Thanks to Arthur for contacting me earlier today to let me know some residents living around Erleigh Road are currently without water.

My colleague Kirsten Bayes who lives in the area is also affected.

I contacted Reading Borough Council and Sally Swift has responded as follows:

We had reports around 6.30am of a burst water main in the London Road outside RBH, Thames Water are in attendance and two lanes of the road are closed whilst work takes place.
 
I have spoken to Thames Water Press Office and the are throwing all the resources at the problem because of the close proximity to the hospital.  They are getting bottled water to the area (not sure of locations at the moment) . I have asked that we are kept fully informed, update you as soon as I hear anything.

Since then we have had the following update from Thames Water:

We are currently on site and anticipate that water will be restored to all
properties within 4 hours.

The main burst at approximately 4am this morning and since then we have had
around 450 calls reporting loss of water supply or low pressure, although
we expect that up to 4,000 properties in the RG1 and RG6 areas have been
affected.

The Royal Berkshire Hospital has got water in most but not all areas and
supply has been lost to some services including admin, nursery and
conference room facilities.

The burst is being treated as an urgent priority and we are in close
contact with the hospital.

Bottled water is also being delivered to affected properties.

This is obviously a massive inconvenience to local residents living around London Road during this already very difficult week weather-wise. The fact that the Hospital is affected is obviously also a major concern. 

Let's hope the problems can be resolved quickly.

We are in touch with Thames Water and Reading Borough Council and we will post updates here as soon as we can.

Update:

Thames Water have said any residents experiencing real difficulty then they should call TW's
Customer Centre on 0845 9200 800.

The Co-Op on Erleigh Road was rationing bottled water to three per customer earlier this morning. We've just heard that they have run out of water.

Still waiting to hear where supplies of bottled water will be deposited.

Comments

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Thanks for these useful updates on the blog and Twitter Daisy.