This week in the House of Commons, Epping Forest MP Dr Neil Hudson slammed Thames Water for its ‘wholly unacceptable’ response to the water outage crisis that affected thousands of homes and people in his Epping Forest constituency in August.
The Parliamentary debate was held in response to a petition about the water industry, that has amassed over 200,000 signatures nationwide, including over 300 in the Epping Forest constituency.
Dr Hudson brought constituents’ distress during the crisis to the Government’s attention, sharing how water outages in areas including Loughton, Chigwell, Buckhurst Hill and Epping left thousands without water during the hottest week of the year. This left vulnerable people without water to wash or bathe, including parents unable to make up bottles for their babies.
He went on to blast Thames Water’s ‘very poor’ communication and logistics in response to constituents’ distress, describing how bottled water stations were too few and too inconvenient to access, leaving painfully long queues in scorching Summer heat for those who could reach them, while more convenient locations that opened later shockingly ran out of water or closed early.
During the August crisis, Dr Hudson urgently communicated and liaised directly with both Thames Water and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to demand they work together to deliver the effective crisis response constituents rightly expected.
He again repeated this call in this Parliamentary Debate and urged the Government to ensure they would press companies to properly address the issues at the heart of this Summer’s incident. He called specifically for the Government to ensure water companies are properly planning for potential crises, and that water infrastructure is being assessed so leakages and bursts can be avoided in future.
Following his speech in the Commons, Dr Neil Hudson MP, Shadow DEFRA Minister of State said:
“This Summer’s unacceptable Thames Water outages in Epping Forest subjected thousands of people to having no water in one of the hottest weeks of the year
“They must not leave my constituents in such alarm and distress ever again, and I pressed the Government to step up to the plate and ensure water companies are held to account.”
