A THAMES WATER boss admitted the company ‘could have done better’ at communicating with residents when things go wrong – just days before people in Reading and Wokingham were left without water and little information.
The firm’s sustainability director, Richard Aylard, made the admission last week, and before the company’s Pangbourne treatment works broke down, leaving residents across Reading without water for four days. The company also endured 10 burst water mains in the area.
And on Wednesday, January 24, two burst water mains left parts of Finchampstead and Barkham without water.
Mr Aylard said the company had learned ‘you can never communicate too much’ after it was criticised over its response to a sinkhole in the Evendons area of Wokingham in 2022.
Thames Water was criticised again by Reading Borough Council leader Jason Brock this week after severe problems with water pressure.
Reading Borough Council leader Jason Brock said on Tuesday that Thames Water’s communication and support for residents affected by the outages had been ‘unacceptably poor.’
But just a week earlier, on Tuesday January 16, Mr Aylard said the company had learned lessons from previous criticisms.
He said: “The main theme is about communication. You can never communicate too much – whatever you do won’t be enough.
“We felt that there were specific things we could have done better and that’s been fed back to the teams.”
He added: “There have been lessons learned and passed on.”
Mr Aylard made the comments as he faced questions from Wokingham Borough Council’s overview and scrutiny management committee on Tuesday, January 18.
He also said Thames Water had been carrying out ‘a fair bit of mains replacement in the area,’ but that ‘there’s a lot more to do.’
He admitted the company loses 25% of its water in the Thames Valley area through leakage, and said a third of that wastage comes from its own pipes, and that households are responsible for the rest.
Mr Aylard said: “Across the Thames Valley area it’s in the region of 25% and that’s broken up into three ways. The first third of that is actually the leakage on our pipes.
“Another third is leakage on customer pipes which in this country we count as water company leakage despite the fact it’s on customer pipes. The third element of leakage is what we call wastage, which is dripping taps, leaky loos which are the ones which are always just running slightly.”
He added: “A lot of work to get leakage down. We’ve done a lot – there’s a lot more to do.”
