Thousands of people across south London have been left without water this morning with six postcodes impacted.
The areas include Crystal Palace, Sydenham and surrounding neighbourhoods with postcodes SE19, SE20, SE23, SE26, SE27, and SW16 affected.
People have reported a complete loss of water in these areas and a lack of water pressure.
The water outage is because of a burst pipe and Thames Water says engineers have been working throughout the night to fix the issue.
It is also dealing with a separate leak at Crystal Palace pumping station.
Micon Metcalfe, a local who lives in West Norwood, told Metro that she has been without water since 4pm yesterday.
‘We had no water for washing and flushing loos or even drinking this morning.
‘We’ve had periodic issues with supply in the winter – lots of burst pipes but this is the longest we’ve had no supply for a long time.
‘We used some water from an outside garden canister to heat up for washing.
‘Thames Water have given updates periodically but no actual timescales. They’ve said they have re routed supply but our street has no water and has not for 16 hours.
‘Thames Water say they are liaising with priority customers but there is no bottled water available yet for other residents.’
Gjergj Pjedij, the owner of Roasted Bean, in Crystal Palace, told Metro that while his water pressure is ok at the moment, he’s experienced water pressure issues recently.
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He said: ‘We’ve had problems with our water at the cafe in the past, a couple of Saturdays back now.
‘While the pressure seems fine for us this morning, it really impacted business at the time.
‘It doesn’t help when water pressure can drop at any moment and I hope others in the area are not affected too badly.’
Londoners are not happy this morning and many have taken to social media to express their anger.
One wrote: ‘More than 12 hours without water in West Norwood. We don’t have water to drink and flush the toilet.’
Others across London have also reported similar issues trying to flush their loos.
Another said: ‘Will you be providing bottled water? We cannot wash or flush loos. This is a long time with no water.’
Somebody else commented: ‘Any updates on the SE27 water situation? No updates since 1am on your website and we have had no water for over 14 hours.’
Emergency measures including the redirecting of water through alternative pipelines has been installed.
Some residents have reported cloudy water with bubbles in their supply.
This is caused by trapped air in the pipes while work is carried out to fix the issue.
The news comes after Ofwat confirmed it had launched an investigation into Thames Water over concerns it will not complete more than 100 environmental schemes funded by customers.
It will look into whether Thames Water breached its licence.
Thames Water said it pledged to carry out 812 schemes as part of a wider national programme between 2020 and 2025, to meet national regulations.
But Ofwat said it was told by Thames Water that it would be unlikely to complete more than 100 of these schemes by the end of March deadline.
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