Waverley to Hold Public Wash-up on Water Supply Incident

Published on: 18 Nov, 2023
Updated on: 18 Nov, 2023

By Martin Giles

A public meeting to discuss how Thames Water should be held to account for the lengthy disruption of water supply in Godalming and surrounding villages is being organised by Waverley Borough Council.

South West Surrey MP Jeremy Hunt has already said Thames Water has agreed to a public meeting he will  arrange but no date or venue for that meeting has yet been announced yet. Angela Richardson, Guildford’s MP, is also arranging a public meeting and the possibility of these being one joint meeting for Guildford and Waverley residents is being considered.

Ms Richardson has said the meeting she was arranging would take place after Thames Water had been able to carry out a “lessons learned” review.

Waverley Council leader Paul Follows

Asked how the Waverley Council meeting would fit with the meeting(s) planned by local Conservative MPs , the Lib Dem leader of WBC, Cllr Paul Follows, said: “He [Jeremy Hunt] has no date or plans yet. I do.

“People need reassurance that they will have reliable water over Christmas and winter more generally. Critical infrastructure can’t be taken offline by a mildly windy night again, if that was the cause.”

This week there have been further reports of localised water supply problems with some, at least, put down to air locks caused by air getting into the systems when water pressure drops.

Jeremy Hunt, MP for Surrey South West

Jeremy Hunt is to be invited to Waverley’s meeting, to be held in its council chamber on the early evening of Friday, December 8, as well as representatives from Thames Water, Surrey County Council and other relevant bodies such as local schools and GP surgeries.

The meeting will be chaired by the Mayor of Waverley alongside Cllr Follows and the leader of Guildford Borough Council, Cllr Julia McShane.

Because of the limited capacity of the venue it is intended that it will also be possible to attend the meeting online via Zoom.

Cllr Follows told The Dragon: “Residents will be able to register to speak and ask questions of the panel.

“We will provide a webpage and link for anyone to provide any written testimony and their views on what happened.

“The session will also discuss further potential actions and how we can hold those with the responsibility to manage water infrastructure and water incidents to account and ensure that lessons are learnt for future outages.

“There will be more on this soon once the details are confirmed (they are subject to change of course), but I think it best to give residents as much notice as possible.”

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