Chiswick Business Park Left Without Water

5,000 workers have supply cut off after Thames Water fails to keep promise

Thousands of workers at Chiswick Business Park had to go without their early morning cuppa today (Thursday March 1st) because of the long-standing leak on Chiswick High Road.

Despite the promise from Thames Water that the supplies to local residents and businesses would not be affected any longer, over 5,000 office workers arrived at work to find the water supply to the business park had been cut off.

Chiswick Business Park is home to thirty-five major companies including Discovery, Vue Entertainment, CBS News, Esporta, and Starbucks.

The Communications Manager, Gemma Mc Neilis said they were "disappointed" that Thames Water had not warned them in advance.

When a call was made to Thames Water, an answering machine message indicated that there were "no problems' in the area.

" Fortunately we were able to put in an emergency plan to provide stored water for the employees here. But we would have preferred to have known in advance" she commented.

The water supply disruption lasted around two hours.

The troublesome leak on Chiswick High Road is still causing problems for local residents, despite a promise from Thames Water that it would be fixed by today.

A statement to Chiswick W4.com from Thames Water today said: "We are doing our best to repair the burst pipe in Chiswick High Road while trying to maintain supply to our customers and had hoped to get this done last night. We stopped water running through the broken pipe closing a total of nine large valves in the area and re-routed water into the area from other parts of our network to avoid interrupting people's supplies - but this did not work. A number of properties were cut off unexpectedly and for that we're really sorry.

"We are now fitting a new valve on to the pipe which we hope will enable us to do the repair without cutting off people's water. This should be done by this evening and then we will do the work and rebuild the pavement as soon as we can.

"We'd like to apologise again for the inconvenience this is causing."

An official from Hounslow Borough Council visited the area today. The leak is situated under a mature plane tree in front of the Majestic off-licence.

He told one concerned resident that he seen had the vast increase in the excavation and how the lamp and lights were now not working and had a hole dug around them. The official said he has passed on his concerns onto Highways, who coordinate utilities, to chase up Thames Water and get the matter resolved.

A Council tree officer is checking the site daily, and has reported that the roots of the tree are still ok and that the tree is stable and will recover from this ordeal. He however has recommended a pollard of the tree as soon as it is safe for a team to enter the area.

March 1, 2012