Major incident leaves thousands of Surrey citizens without water supply

Thames Water’s Shalford treatment works in Guildford has suffered technical issues due to the effects of Storm Ciarán, leaving thousands of residents without access to a water supply.

Surrey County Council declared a ‘major incident’ when thousands of residents were left without water due to a technical issue at a Thames Water treatment facility on Saturday afternoon. 

Now several schools have had to close, and some supermarkets are selling out of bottled water. 

Thames Water has said its engineers are making progress in fixing the technical issues but that the reservoirs still need to be refilled. The company also apologised to those affected in postcode areas GU1, GU2, GU3, GU5, GU6, GU7 and GU8.

Although water is expected to gradually return during the day, Thames Water said it will continue to provide free bottled water at sites including Godalming Crown Court car park and Artington Park and Ride.

“We’ve now re-opened our two bottled water stations after Storm Ciarán caused issues at Shalford Water Treatment Works. We’re really sorry for the delay in doing so,” the company said in a statement issued this morning.

Over the past two days, those affected have been forming long queues in cars and on foot to get access to the bottled water distributed by the company. This service will be provided until 9pm on Monday 6 November.

Jeremy Hunt, the MP for the area, has been providing updates on X (formerly Twitter). After speaking with the CEO of Thames Water, he confirmed at 2.50pm on Sunday that 13,500 customers did not have water and a further 6,500 were expected to lose their supply shortly.

From 7pm on the same day, he confirmed Thames Water had been able to address the issue and was slowly ramping up production.

On Monday, Waverley Borough Council leader Paul Follows told BBC Breakfast that the issue was affecting 10,000-12,000 people.

“Water infrastructure in this country is clearly crumbling,” he added. “I have certainly got questions for the county for not declaring a major incident much earlier, and I will certainly have questions for our MP about the state of water infrastructure in the local area because it is clearly failing.”

David Bird, retail director at Thames Water, told BBC Breakfast the company had 28 tankers bringing supplies to local hospitals and others 24 hours a day.

“All vulnerable customers on our priority services register received water before the supply actually impacted them,” he said. “We’ve been replenishing those supplies and will continue to do so.”

Surrey County Council leader Tim Oliver said: “Surrey County Council is continuing to work with partners across the Local Resilience Forum (LRF) following notification from Thames Water of a water shortage in the Guildford/Waverley areas.

“This has been declared a major incident by the LRF. All partners will continue to work closely with Thames Water, which is the lead agency in this incident, to inform and support residents in these areas, particularly those most vulnerable.”

The lack of water has forced schools such as Godalming College and Godalming Junior School and businesses including Vision Express, Piazza Firenze and The Jack Phillips pub to close.

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