BURST THAMES WATER MAIN CUTS SUPPLY ACROSS SURREY AND LONDON

A burst water main in Molesey, Surrey, cut off supply to thousands of properties, Thames Water said. The fault was first reported at about 05:15 BST and affected Thames Ditton, Esher, Sunbury and other parts of Surrey and south London. Two schools, Long Ditton Infant and Nursery School and Thames Ditton Infant School, closed for the day because of the outage. Thames Water said it had isolated the burst main and apologised to customers. The firm said repairs were continuing around the clock and it expected supply to be restored "shortly".

Thames Water initially said as many as 15,000 properties had lost supply or seen low pressure, a figure that fell to 6,000 as engineers rerouted water around the network. Jane Allen, from West Molesey, said she was alerted by a text from her neighbour and had no water at all, leaving her reliant on bottled supplies. Helen Ryder, who runs a flower shop in Thames Ditton, said her priority was making sure staff and stock both had water. Thames Water said it would deliver water to registered vulnerable customers and open bottled water stations for the public.

Monica Harding, the MP for Esher and Walton, said she was pushing for an urgent response after learning of the outage from a local WhatsApp group. She added that the Wilderness area of Molesey had flooded, and that engineers were dealing with the effects of failed infrastructure. Thames Water said at 11:25 BST that teams had begun rerouting water, with pressure returning to the Surbiton area at lower than normal levels until the pipe was fixed. The company said further areas would see supply restored as repairs continued.