A London resident who has been without water for more than three days has said Thames Water’s plan to charge customer even more than previously agreed is “just greed”.
Leigh McAlpine, 44, who lives in the SE20 area of Crystal Palace in south London, one of the postcodes affected by the water outage, said she has not had water since about 5am on Tuesday after a water pipe burst.
Thames Water customers have shared their frustration over the outage after the company asked the competition regulator to allow it to charge customers even more over the coming years than had previously been granted.
The company has already been allowed a 35% rise in consumer bills over the next five years by water regulator Ofwat, after Thames had lobbied for a 59% hike.
“We’re getting worse service and we’re paying double what we paid two years ago,” Ms McAlpine told the PA news agency.
“It’s just greed.”
The recruitment coordinator said she has “been testing the taps for three days and we haven’t even had a trickle”.
She added: “I think the most annoying thing is probably not being able to flush the toilet.”
She said she has had to buy bottled water for daily tasks such as flushing the toilet, washing the dishes and cooking.
A distribution centre has been set up in the car park of Sainsbury’s on Southend Lane in Sydenham, but Ms McApline has criticised Thames Water for not having more bottled water stations.
“I think the most annoying thing is just the water distribution station being so far away,” she said.
“They should have had one in Crystal (Palace) Park. There are huge car parks here. They could have done it there.”
She said the distribution centre is “over an hour’s walk for us”, which she said was particularly inconvenient because her car is in a garage after it failed an MOT test.
She said she was having to use the shower at her sister-in-law’s house, in Beckenham.
She fears her property might be one of the last to be reconnected as she lives in a top-floor flat.
“I think the problem for us is, we’re in a block of flats and we’re on the top floor, and some of the residents that have got the ground floor flats are saying some people have got water back, or some people had water and then it disappeared,” she said.
“But obviously for us, it’s got to come all the way up to where we are, so we’re going to be the last people to get the water back.”
Properties in Crystal Palace have experienced low water pressure or no water this week after a water pipe burst, which the company has since fixed.
A Thames Water spokesman said water returned for the majority of properties in the area on Thursday and those still without water should see their supplies return overnight and on Saturday.
They said: “Our teams are doing final checks on the pipework, with supply expected to return to the remaining affected properties overnight and tomorrow.
“We continue to deliver bottled water to customers on our priority services register and our bottled water station will remain open, at Sainsbury’s Southend Lane, SE26 4PU.
“We have been working 24 hours a day to resolve the issue and apologise to our customers for the inconvenience over the last few days.”
