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| WATER CO IS WARNED |
Thames Water faces court if road
repairs not up to scratch
THAMES Water could be forced into the courts unless it improves
the standards of its repairs drastically, City Hall warned yesterday
(Thursday).
Westminster Council took the unprecedented step of issuing an Improvement
Notice against Thames Water, claiming that nearly 40 per cent of
works carried out by the company is unsatisfactory, including work
in Mayfair, Soho and Bayswater.
Unless the water company now sticks to a strict improvement plan
yet to be agreed, it could find itself facing criminal proceedings.
Westminster officers believe that nearly 4,000 Thames Water repairs,
out of 10,000 over the last year, are defective.
Councillor Alan Bradley, Westminster’s cabinet member for street
environment, said: “The last couple of years their standards
have deteriorated and it all stems from when they changed their
contractor a couple of years ago, then standards started to drop.
“We held meetings with them in May and June this year and they
said then they would improve. In fact things have got worse.”
He added: “The sort of problems we have been having include
them carrying out a lot of work at weekends.
“Between May and October they had not applied for a single
road closure and yet they were carrying out work which required
road closure.”
Council officers cite several cases where work has been inadequate
including a hole developing in repairs in Albemarle Street, Mayfair,
eight centimetre potholes emerging in Mortimer Street, Fitzrovia
and repairs of a leak in Oxford Street, that were inadequately completed.
Cllr Bradley added: “One classic case was in Eastbourne Terrace
where they just opened the whole road up and buses were forced to
make incredible U-turns.”
Thames Water now has 28 days to respond to Westminster Council.
Cllr Bradley said: “They need to agree with us an improvement
plan to rectify the situation, with specific targets.
“They have a three month period.
“If we are not satisfied we can them take them to court. If
they do not comply with an improvement order they are actually committing
a criminal offence.”
In a statement issued last night (Thursday) Thames Water admitted
there had been problems. They said: “We are aware that there
has been a deterioration in performance from our local contractors,
for which we apologise.
“We have been working closely with the council and the contractors
to address this and are determined to improve the situation.
“We have already increased the level of supervision to improve
the quality of work and all work is now being checked by our inspectors
immediately upon completion.
“The council’s claims that we are deliberately working
at times when it is hard to inspect sites is wrong and is simply
a reflection of the volume of work we are carrying out locally.”
The statement added: “We are spending about £7 million
locally to replace the leakiest pipes and have already saved more
than a million litres of water a day by renewing old mains in St
John’s Wood.
“Similar work is also being accelerated across the rest of
the city, where we intend to replace 850 miles of the oldest pipes
over the next five years.” |
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