Thames Water restores supplies after West Molesey burst main

Thames Water said water supplies had been restored across affected parts of south London and Surrey on Monday afternoon after a burst main in West Molesey disrupted service and prompted several schools to close. The company said engineers had isolated the pipe and were still working on a permanent repair, with some customers potentially experiencing low pressure. The outage affected homes and businesses across 18 postcode areas, spanning five south London boroughs and the Surrey districts of Elmbridge and Spelthorne. Thames Water initially estimated that up to 15,000 properties had been affected. It later said the number had fallen to about 6,000 before reporting that supplies were restored. The figures were successive company estimates; the total number of properties affected over the incident was not established in the available information. Schools that said they closed because of the outage included Esher Sixth Form College, Holy Cross School, Thames Ditton Infant School and Long Ditton Infant and Nursery School. Some schools reported that water supplies at their sites were unavailable or insufficient for continued operation.