Repairs continue after water restored to homes

Repairs are ongoing to a large burst main near a Surrey reservoir which affected supplies to as many as 15,000 properties on Monday morning.

Thames Water says supply should now be restored to people previously impacted by the burst in East Molesey which affected homes in Surrey, as well as parts of south London.

A spokesperson for the water company said it was continuing to reroute water to keep taps on during the repairs, and that a bottled water station was open at Sandown Park Racecourse.

Schools were forced to close on Monday in parts of Thames Ditton as a result of the lack of water.

On Monday evening, Thames Water said its network continued to hold well with "all properties back in supply", adding on Tuesday that there was "very little impact reported overnight".

It added that while the repair was "complex", it was expecting materials to arrive "later this week" and that more work would then take place as soon as it was safe to do so.

Issues were first reported at 05:15 BST on Monday, with the burst main flooding a playing field near to the Island Barn Reservoir.

Thames Water previously said the main would "likely take some time to fix".

Monica Harding, MP for Esher and Walton, told BBC Radio Surrey on Tuesday that eight schools in the constituency had been forced to close as a result of the issue.

She added: "It had a profound effect on our community. Some quite vulnerable people didn't have water coming out of their taps.

"It was a bit of a disaster really. There are some fundamental questions to answer."

The water company said it had invested £2.7bn in its infrastructure in 2025-26 and planned to increase this to £4bn by 2030.

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