Water supplies restored in Mill Hill - Are we entitled to compensation

Many families in Edgware and Mill Hill had a nightmare day yesterday. We awoke to find that there was no water. For some of us this simply meant no shower or cup of tea, but for many it caused a massive problem. Schools closed down as toilets ran dry. For parents with young children this meant working arrangements were disrupted and other plans abandoned. This blog had over 1,000 hits from google searches of people trying to find out what was going on.

We posted a link to the affinity water site detailing the problem - https://www.affinitywater.co.uk/where-we-are-working.aspx?wID=1817 - so that readers could keep up to date with regular updates. It seems the problem was finally fixed at 17.40, although low pressure and water discolouration persisted for a while. Here is the last update.

Water Supply Problems - N12 Finchley, WD6 Borehamwood, HA8 Harrow, NW7 Mill Hill, EN5 Enfield (click here for more info) - 06/10/2014

Update 17:40
Our technicians have now repaired the main and will now begin to recharge the network in the area. Pressure will gradually increase to normal throughout late afternoon and into the evening and supplies are now being restored in some areas.
When your supply is restored, you may notice some slight discolouration or cloudiness to the water. If you experience this, simply run your kitchen cold water tap until the water clears.
We would like to thank you for your patience whilst we carried out this essential repair.
Our technicians have now repaired the main and are working to restore your supply. Pressure will gradually increase to normal throughout late afternoon and into the evening.

Given the huge disruption and inconvenience caused, one would hope that Affinity water would give affected customers some sort of rebate. One has to presume that given that there wasn't  a huge meteorite strike on the water main affected, the problem was caused by them not maintaining their network properly. It seems strange to me that so large an area can be affected by a single broken pipe, you'd think that they'd build a degree of resilience into their network. We get charged through the nose for services and if we don't pay our bills, the companies are only too quick to cut us off or call in the bailiffhttps://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9215006984353817373#editor/target=post;postID=7860141216468423494s. When they fail to deliver, surely we should be entitled to some sort of rebate. In our case we had to make an emergency trip to the shops to buy bottles of water, simply to have a cup of tea.

I will be emailing my MP as follows

I am writing with regards to the water supply issues in Mill Hill. Many families were inconvenienced. My daughter was unable to attend school at Mill Hill County High, disrupting her A Level studies. Whilst we all understand that such things happen from time to time, it strikes me that Affinity water had no adequate contingency plans. Surely bottled water should be delivered to affected households, to at least allow people to clean teeth and make a cup of tea? For many working and travel arrangements had to be changed as childcare issues needed addressing.

I believe that as Affinity water failed to provide a service, affected households are due a rebate on our water bills. Can I ask you as my MP to address this issue. If there is a mechanism for claiming compensation, please can you let me know and I will publicise it via my blog. FYI I had over 1,000 hits on the site yesterday from people doing google searches on “low water pressure in Mill Hill”. To me this indicated that Affinity water were doing a lousy job getting the message over. They should have done an emergency leaflet drop informing vulnerable people as to how to deal with the situation.

I suggest you do the same. For residents of the Hendon Borough email matthew.offord.mp@parliament.uk

What is going on with the water pressure in Mill Hill?

Does anyone know what is going on with the water in Mill Hill? Our house in Millway has had just a trickle coming out of the taps since early yesterday evening. We've had reports of friends near Mill Hill County High school having no water at all. A quick enquiry on the Affinity Water website reveals there is a burst water main Edgware. There is an alert detailing the progress of work indicting that there will be many households without water until this afternoon. Details here https://www.affinitywater.co.uk/where-we-are-working.aspx?wID=1817

This was the latest update


 Update 06:20
We would like to apologise for the inconvenience caused by a burst on a 21" inch main on the A41 in Edgware which may be affecting your supply.
Our technicians are on site and have been working through the night to repair the burst and to ensure your supply is restored as quickly as possible.
At this time it is unlikely that supplies will be restored until this afternoon
During this time, we ask you not to use any electrical appliances, that require a water supply, like washing machines or dishwashers and to conserve water from storage tanks during the time your water supply is interrupted
We would like to thank our customers for their patience whilst we carry out this repair
This message will be updated at 8:00am October 7th

Corporate failure strikes Mill Hill

Yesterday was the busiest ever Sunday for hits on this blog. Sunday is normally the day when I get least hits. Why you may wonder? Well when I woke up, we had no water in our taps. I was told by a neighbour that a water main had burst at Apex Corner. As I had to take my son to football, I thought I'd see what happened when I got home.

I returned home at 1pm to find no water in my taps. I checked the local paper. No news. I had a look at Barnet Council website. No news. I looked at the Vieolia Water website. This directed me to a page where I could type in my postcode and see if there was service disruption. This I did. No service disruption. I then had a brainwave. I typed in the address of a friend in Edgware (the post code where the water main had burst). This told me that Mill Hill (my postcode) would have no water for the foreseeable future.

I posted the details on the blog, just in case anyone else googled "No Water in Mill Hill". I got over 1,000 hits on that. Later I posted an update. Veolia Water said that they would deliver bottled water to three locations in Mill Hill later. I'd already bought some at this point. I do like a cup of tea whilst I watch football and eat lunch.

Service was resumed sometime after 7pm. This morning I read the story on the Hendon Times. They said that the emergemcy bottled water had only made it to one location. All of it went at Wise Lane. I wrote to the top councillors and CEO of Barnet Council asking why they had posted nothing on their website. Surely a note explaining to residents what was happening would have been helpful. Remarkably, I got a "Nothing to do with us Guv'nor" response from Nick Walkley CEO. Of course I knew it wasn't their fault, but a bit of information would surely have not gone amiss. Here's Walkley's reply :-

Mr Tichborne

Thank you for your email.

The Council did respond through its emergency planning process to a serious flooding incident in the Broadfields/Hale Lane area this morning. A number of properties were flooded, some seriously, as a result of a burst water main. Officers attended to support the emergency services at the scene.

The on-call Officer raised your concerns about a lack of information for Mill Hill residents on the Veolia website. Our communications lead contacted Veolia's Director of Communications this afternoon to alert them to the growing need for further resident information as the length of time without supply extended. Throughout this time (as indicated on their website) Veolia have remained confident of restoring supplies today.

Our latest information is that repairs have been completed but that it will take until later in the evening for all affected households to receive supply and this may be at a lower pressure than normal. Veolia's website will continue to provide updates. I do hope this means all household will have their supply restored shortly.

Water supply is not the responsibility of the Council and we do not become involved in every water supply issue. However should this have become an extended incident the Council would have enacted its emergency procedures working with Veolia to identify vulnerable residents, providing rest centres where necessary and sharing Veolia and other information updates with Residents through the website and by liaison with the local press.

Nick Walkley

I had no water for approx 12 hours. Not everyone has bottled water in house. Not everyone can get to the shops. No one seemed to know what was going on unless they knew to check Veolia website and enter an Edgware post code. In short it was  a complete corporate failure.

In a recent comment on this blog, a former Conservative Councillor stated that my comments about "outsourcing and privatisation" were typical of those of the left. He claimed that privatisation was the cure of all ails. He said :-

Privatisation was all about cheaper services but more importantly about providing choice. Now you can shop around for gas, electricity and telephone services.

Ask anyone in Mill Hill today what they think of privatised water supplies? Even a Tory Council candidate who lives over the road was moaning about "selling water to the French" yesterday. This is just a foretaste of what we will see when Barnet privatises all of its services under the OneBarnet program. The main concept of OneBarnet is to outsource all but core strategic central services. It has been tried before. That was the business model for Railtrack. We all know what happened there, don't we.

I suggest we give Barnet a new name BarnetTrack.