Water Outage Disrupts Surrey and London Communities, Closes Schools

Thousands of homes in Surrey and parts of South West London are experiencing water supply disruptions following a large burst water main.

The incident, which was first reported around 5:15 AM BST, has affected areas including Thames Ditton, Esher, and Sunbury. Thames Water is investigating the cause and has stated that repairs are likely to take a significant amount of time.

Long Ditton Infant and Nursery School and Thames Ditton Infant School announced their closure for the day due to the lack of water supply. Residents have described the impact of the outage, with some reporting no water flow at all.

"We have none at all, it didn't even trickle out a bit," said Jane Allen, a resident of West Molesey. "I have six bottles of water in the house, which will be fine for drinking but we won't be able to do anything else." She added concerns for elderly neighbors who might be more severely affected.

Local Member of Parliament Monica Harding has stated she is "pushing for an urgent response" to the outage. "For now, we just need to get that water flowing again," she told BBC Radio Surrey.

Thames Water reported at 9:40 AM that its specialist team was on site working to contain the flooding from the broken pipe. The company has begun re-routing water around the affected area, and customers in the Surbiton area were expected to see service gradually restored, although pressure may be lower than normal until the pipe is fully repaired.

A water tanker was seen parked next to a road in the affected region.