Over Easter weekend I was contacted by The Guildford Dragon.  They had reports of a long-running (no pun intended) water leak in Old Palace Road.  When they contacted Thames Water they had been told that the company were waiting for permission from Surrey County Council to open up the highway to mend the leak.  The Guildford Dragon contacted me to see if I could help to find out what was going on.

I made a couple of phone calls to Thames Water before I found someone who told me what had happened.  The leak had originally been reported to them on 15th March and they had gone out to inspect it.  Then they got another report and inspected again on 20th March and decided that they needed to repair it quickly because of damage to the road surface.  They had then been given permission by Surrey County Council on 21st March to work on the highway.  And yet on 28th March they had told The Guildford Dragon that they were still waiting for that consent.

The good news is that Thames Water’s contractors were on site today to carry out the repair.  The bad news is that it was more than two weeks between the date the leak was reported and the repairs being done.  We can only imagine the amount of water which was wasted in those two weeks and with the levels of water bills rising every year, that is not acceptable.

Having said all that, it is one of the joys of being a councillor that I am able to help in situations like this.