Burst Water Main Disrupts Town Centre Traffic

Published on: 24 Jan, 2019
Updated on: 25 Jan, 2019

Three lanes down to one where the Farnham Road empties into the gyratory by the Railway Station.

Workmen are struggling this evening (January 24, 2019) to find a broken water main that is disrupting traffic entering the town centre gyratory from Farnham Road. Water was flowing out across the entrance to Walnut Tree Close and down into Bridge Street at 10.20pm.

Even with the relatively light late evening traffic the queue on the Farnham Road was backed up to almost Friar’s Gate, Onslow Village. Major disruption can be expected tomorrow morning at rush hour if the work is continuing.

The hole that has been dug to discover the fractured water main.

Members of the team trying to carry out the repair said that they had been on site since early evening. “We can fix this in 30 minutes once we have found the fracture, said one.

Other water mains in the area have burst in recent years and it is suspected they are old infrastructure. (See: Repairs At Last To Burst Main – But How Much Water Has Been Wasted?)

Thames Water said later (11.55pm) that they expected the road to be fully open by tomorrow morning and the footpath to be reinstated during tomorrow afternoon.

In June 2018 Thames Water were ordered to pay out £120m to compensate customers over poor management of leaks.

An investigation by regulator Ofwat found the company “failed its customers” as it breached two of its legal responsibilities.

Chief executive Steve Robertson said the company “met its leakage targets for a decade” but added its recent performance “has not been good enough”.