Water leak on Silverdale

[Tim Lund]

Saw another with algae today, in Perry Vale



It would be nice if Thames Water could just give a truthful statement about what their priorities are; maybe there are other leaks where it makes more sense to be spending money getting them fixed. But who decides how big the overall budget is for fixing leaks?

Do I believe them that they actually sent someone down here? They wrote:

We've attended but cars were parked where we need to work, we are arranging for cones to be put on the road to prevent this. I'll contact you again by Wednesday 11 June with a further update

but did they actually put in a request to LB Lewisham to dig up the road, which I think they would have to do? Are we just being treated with complete contempt by a utility company which knows it doesn't really have to bother?

[mosy]

Quote from post of Customer Resolution reply of 13 June:

I'm sorry for the further delay. I'll contact you again by Friday 20 June to confirm this has been done.

Anyone else notice that 20 June is 9 mths to the (calendar month) day since that leak was first reported on here? So 9 months and counting...

[Tim Lund]

It's now June 24th, and no update as promised by June 20th from Thames Water.

No apparent interest either from Lewisham's new Cabinet Member with responsibility for the public realm, and also councillor for the ward where the leak is - Sydenham.

Meanwhile, this morning, I saw someone with a Thames Water shirt on site. But he couldn't do anything because somehow their contractors, Docwra, hadn't got on to coning off the road, and cars were parked where they needed to work.

How completely stupid and inefficient. This is the company which, as part of the signature for the emails they send me, claim that they

provide the essential service that's at the heart of daily life.

[Tim Lund]

And this morning, on the way to work, I saw someone with a Docwra van who said he would have the leak repaired today, with just a very modest bit of the road surface coned off.

Somehow I believe him more than Customer Resolution, but I'm not betting on it yet.

[mosy]

Let us know when it's time and we'll no doubt all raise a glass of the good stuff to f i n a l l y celebrate. Standing by...

[SE19]

Hi, general comments. Keep up the good work on complaining to Thames Water. I’ve had good success working with CCWater and local Ward Cllrs. Thames repeatedly were saying an underground leak was stemming from private properties (next to the leak), and this was strongly disputed by the respective private property owners (whom I talked too). Meanwhile, on the steep hill, this pavement area would freeze over year on year every Winter! I escalated to CCWater and they were able to coordinate, and the leak was permanently fixed.

Recently I’ve escalated another long standing set of leaks on Sydenham Hill to CCWater. Again local Councul, Cllrs and Major engaged and had been lobbying here for some time. Thames have responded recently. But so far “filled in” the leaks, and the leaks not stopped "permanently". Hopefully we can get this fixed before winter freezing makes this very dangerous area.

If you want to contact CCWater, details at: http://ccwater.custhelp.com/app/answers ... /related/1

Often water leaks issues are very difficult. Where we see the leak, it may have no relation to where the leak actually is. Water can travel long distances before emerging. As in the first example above, Thames needed to turn of water to many properties over a wide area before localising exactly where the leak was.

Hope this may help. As you have done, keeping photos, and emailing “pdf” file report summary to CCWater can help.

SE19

[mosy]

You've now made me wonder about the "stemming from private property" reason given for delay. I wonder if it's becoming a standard answer...

[Tim Lund]

You've now made me wonder about the "stemming from private property" reason given for delay. I wonder if it's becoming a standard answer...

I suspect so, although they seem to have some special jargon for this, "CSL" ,meaning customer side leak. It's what they wrote in this email

22 November 2013

Our Ref: 33105857

Silverdale road

Dear Mr Lund

Thank you for your email and for speaking with me today. I’ll continue to look the two leaks located along Silverdale road and I’ll update you by 29 November again at the latest.

The leak located near the junction of Bishopsthorpe Road has been confirmed as a Customer Side Leak (CSL). This is a leak within the boundary of a property and is the responsibility of the property owner. We are currently trying to resolve this issue.

The leak near the entrance of Mayow Park was repaired on 31 October 2013 but on 4 November 2013 there was still a further leak. We are still investigating this leak but this is also believed to be a CSL to a nearby property.

Thank you for letting us know of this and I’ll update you again next week. I hope this helps. If you need to contact us again regarding this matter, please telephone me on 08457 200897. Our offices are open between the hours of 8am and 5pm, Monday to Friday.

Yours sincerely

Aston Gray

Customer Resolution

which has been contradicted by their subsequent acceptance of responsibility.

And thank you, SE19, for reminding me about CCWater.

Hi, general comments. Keep up the good work on complaining to Thames Water. I’ve had good success working with CCWater and local Ward Cllrs.

If you go back to the OP, I wrote

On their web site they list EIGHT different regulators, but I'm starting with

• Ofwat - which seems the main one, and is responsible for Thames Water targets
• Environmental Health Officers - because they are part of LB Lewisham, and will have a concern for the local environment; and
• the Consumer Council for Water - which hardly anyone has heard of, but were incredibly helpful when my allotments had a problem with a water leak (not Thames Water's fault then, as it happens)

and I subsequently got this response back from CCWater

CCWater Ref: 131211-000010
Date: 17 December 2013

Dear Mr Lund

Thank you for your recent email regarding the on going leak in Silverdale Road, I am disappointed to hear that the leak still continues.

The last time I heard from you with regards to this matter was back in September 2013. I received a copy of a reply from Thames Water on 27 September confirming that the leak is coming from with a property boundary along Silverdale Road. I also telephoned you on 27 September 2013 to relay this information to you.

I would be grateful if you could confirm to if the leak is still continuing and provide me within information why you feel Thames Water is incorrect on the information it supplied to you on 27 September 2013.

Thank you for your assistance on this matter, I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely


Lisa White
Assistant Manager

Please read our Complaints Leaflet: http://www.ccwater.org.uk/upload/pdf/CC ... eaflet.pdf

Consumer Council for Water - London & South East
c/o 1st Floor Victoria Square House, Victoria Square, Birmingham, B2 4AJ
Telephone : 0207 931 8502
fax: 0121 345 1010
email: londonandsoutheast@ccwater.org.uk web: http://www.ccwater.org.uk

I've just had to remind myself why I left it at that ... and the evidence is here in this thread! Thames Water emailed me to say that they had fixed the problem, and I believed them! Winding down for Christmas, I replied to CCWater

Dear Ms White

This particular leak is fixed, as explained in an email I was copied in on by Mike Watkinson of Lewisham Council, and quoted here

http://sydenham.org.uk/forum/viewtopic. ... =20#p89069

There are, however other problems in the area, including two leaks photographed this morning, which you will see on scrolling down from the above posting.

I appreciate your concern, and would welcome being kept informed about further developments, but it will probably be best if you consider Mike Watkinson to be your principle (sic) point of contact from here on.

Tim Lund

cc Mike Watkinson
Cllr John Paschoud

Oh well, another email due. As I said, thanks for reminding me, SE19, and how embarrassing was that spelling mistake!

Interesting also that CCWater, unlike Thames Water, don't look to chisel a few more pennies out of us the public with an 0845 number to call them on!

Meanwhile a report on progress made over the last 24 hours

Yesterday morning, bright and optimistic ...




and in the sober light of today's dawn

[JRobinson]

#ThamesWater #ThamesWaste
indeed - a hole has been dug, which has filld with water, which it seems, is coming out faster than previously.

any progress is better than inactivity.

[SE19]

Good to hear of progress. For others not familiar with how Thames works, then Thames Water have this guide "Understanding who is responsible", they note:

The diagram below shows how a typical property is connected to our water mains. We are responsible for the communication pipe and our customers are responsible for the supply pipe and internal pipework. If you have a leak on your supply pipe, between your property boundary and the point of entry, we will offer to fix this free of charge

http://www.thameswater.co.uk/help-and-advice/9752.htm

So, In theory, simply turning off your property's "Outside Stop Valve", should prove if a leak is on your property side or not.

SE19

[Tim Lund]

Day 298 and the water still flows, from the flooded hole, now doubled in size



[youtubes]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7H39reyn9Pk[/youtubes]

down the hill to where another longstanding problem - a blocked gully - means the water accumulates

[Tim Lund]

Day 299, and I will admit to some enjoyment in scoring points, tweeting and attaching this lovely new logo


But fundamentally this is an engineering problem, and some poor guy - who I hope at least is getting decently paid - has spent the last two days down a hole, as accessible as a pump will allow, trying to get this fixed.

Once upon a time I was on a course where I learned about Fishbone or Ishikawa diagrams



which are a graphical way of thinking back from a problem to identify what are the actual causes - with the aim of solving it, rather than scoring points - and it would be nice if someone was doing the same here. We, as members of the public, only have a fraction of the information we'd need to be able to identify all the relevant causes in this case, so we're tempted to jump to a preferred ultimate cause - Thames Water being useless, Mrs Thatcher's government for privatising the utilities, lazy or poorly trained British workmen, thanks to an education system which values only white collar careers.

at Forest Hill school circa late 50's we were all meant to be some kind of middle management or more to show how good the comprehensive school system was.
Manual trades were looked down on.

I'd not rule out such factors a priori, other than perhaps blaming Mrs Thatcher herself, since there's no way that's going to help now. We might end up with such conclusions, but we should start with the engineers. And thanks to JRobinson earlier on this thread

If you send Thames Water a request for the data, using the Freedom of Information act (FOI), they have to reply to you. If they deem the request to be propriatory data, restricted somehow under the Data Protection Act (DPA), then they won't give you the data, if they deem that it'll take a considerable amount of time to collect the data for the FOI then they can charge you for it, otherwise they'll have to supply it to you.

However, if you're asking for the location of all their 'plant', pipes, drainage, sewers, etc, you might come unstuck as a lot of it was installed in Victorian times, and they just dug up the road, dug a trench, placed the pipes in and covered it back over, quite often only noting down which road they're on. No computers, or GIS back then, and paper maps not necessarily accurate, so in some cases Thames Water don't know where stuff is, and it's a similar story for other utilites too (maybe not cable though, as that's a lot newer).

There is an organisation based in The City, working to coordinate such underground assets, called National Underground Assets Group (NUAG), which aims to be a one stop shop for utilities, councils, contractors, etc wanting to know about what plant is underground, so that trial holes and trenches can be dug in the right place, reducing the time on site, etc.

I know much more than I would have otherwise about what problems engineers might have in answering the question. So apart from the immediate, and I admit slightly selfish concern to get this particular problem on my road fixed, I'm most interested in how better information about the engineering problems could be obtained and communicated - which is one of the reasons why I'm trying to learn more about Geographical Information Systems (GIS) at the moment. It's good to know that not all white collar skills are useless, and why maybe I have particular esteem for engineering, since it links intellectual and manual skill sets. The fact that my Dad also used to teach engineering has something to do with this as well

Anyway, after this morning's tweet to @ThamesWater and others - and yesterday's actually got a response from a Lewisham Councillor! - I'm going to make another attempt to find out more about the National Underground Assets Group, which seems to be a critically underfunded part of the actual solution.

[JRobinson]

this morning as I passed at about 9am there were two workmen discussing the situation, they had a large blue pipe connection type device on the side of the road, and the gist of the conversation that I overheard was that they'd take out the old one, and put a new one in, four bolts either side, and it'd take about an hour.

[mosy]

I doubt anyone underestimates the difficulty of pinpointing a leak or the skills they have for fixing them. My concern is that it seems to take an inordinate amount of time for some leaks to be addressed on site.

Incidentally, just a snippet: any hole dug which exposes a water pipe has to be filled in again every day whether problem fixed or not to avoid any possibility of naughty people tampering with the water supply.

[Tim Lund]

Day 300, and I think this particular problem is solved.

I happened to speak to the workmen yesterday afternoon, beside the completed repair. Apparently someone had stolen some equipment from their van, and they were waiting for the police to come down. One reason for earlier delays is that a wrong part had been sent.

So is that it? In the grand scheme of things, this is just an anecdote, evidence of a sort of inefficiency and the difficulties which arise from decaying infrastructure. I'm still interested in these wider questions because I think we need to accommodate more people in cities such as London, and we need to upgrade the infrastructure. Otherwise development will only happen further out on greenfield sites, where, as on various other threads I've argued, people don't really so much want to live. If we don't work out better ways of solving this sort of engineering problem, we will end up with the less affluent being pushed out.

[Tim Lund]

I got a response from the Consumer Council for Water

CCWater Ref: 140626-000012
Date: 1 July 2014

Dear Mr Lund

Thank you for your recent email.

I was sorry to read that the leak you reported to Thames Water continued to leak after you were advised that the leak had been fixed. I am pleased to hear that the leak is now fixed but disappointed to hear about the length of time it has taken to repair this leak.

I have written to Thames Water on your behalf to find out why it has taken Thames Water so long to repair the leak. Thames Water has ten working days in which to reply, as soon as I receive a reply from Thames Water, I will contact you again.

Yours sincerely

Lisa White
Assistant Manager

I'm not sure what to expect, or what effect it will have, so in the hope of finding out, I replied as follows:

Thank you for your reply, and I look forward to hearing back from you in due course.

I have a further question which I appreciate will probably go beyond your remit, but if you could say whose remit would cover it, I would be grateful. The question is what I, or any other member of the public, can do about the apparent indifference of a water company to the maintenance of vital infrastructure. In this case Thames Water will have some interest, and a proportion of its revenues will be spent repairing and upgrading old pipework, but who, other than Thames Water is to say if a greater proportion should be allocated for this? Is there a process whereby statistically significant numbers of problems such as this one in which you have been involved can oblige water companies to increase their future spending, or review how money is spent on repairs? Or even that Thames Water's default response to a reported problem appears to be to blame someone else?

From cases such as this - Thames Water agrees £86m Ofwat settlement - it would appear that OfWat is the relevant regulator water, but do the complaints of ordinary people get heard by them?

I wonder also how good an idea the Consumer Council for Water has of the scale of the problems, given that relatively few people know of your existence. Are you aware, for example, of other problems as reported on a nearby local Forum - http://www.se23.com - (which at the time of writing seems to off line, so I am unable to give a direct link), but which also appear as reported to Thames Water here?

[Direct link now back, so here it is]



Is the Consumer Council for Water, perhaps working with OfWat, able to monitor the appearance of such reports and be proactive, rather than just react to approaches such as mine?

Copying in here some possibly interested people from LB Lewisham

Tim Lund

[Tim Lund]

And now, eight days on from the repair, this is how the pavement is looking



that hole being a couple of inches deep



Will Thames Waste have to pay for this when it has to be repaired? I'd like to think so, but why so badly done in the first place?

[Tim Lund]

I've since seen an email to say that Thames Waste

have to go back in with a road closure to repair a valve connecting this supply to the main. This is likely to take about 6 weeks as they will need a Traffic Order to close the road and diversions etc will have to be arranged.

I also noticed that the hole in the pavement which I had my finger poking into has been patched, but that there is a similar hole the other side of the kerb stones occupied when last seen by a car's front tyre.

I'm not quite sure what to make of this - is it a continuation of the same problem? If it's possible to treat a problem separately from a knock-on problem, then it might help Thames Water meet targets for resolving problems, but it won't indicate success in maintaining vital infrastructure.

What was the problem with the connecting valve, and why should there have been one? Of course I don't personally have a clue on the first, but on the second, it's possible to say, as a general point, that there was inadequate information. I find my thoughts returning to that fishbone diagram



and wanting to trace the causes, starting from the purely engineering, for this problem - and others in the area. I suspect they will be to do with the way water companies have been set up and their relation to local authorities resulting in a lack of investment in systems, including information systems, to deal with the problem of maintaining old infrastructure, but that's just a general observation, which may not be particularly important in practice.

[Tim Lund]

Thames Water
Customer Resolution
PO Box 492
Swindon
SN38 8TU


Telephone: 0845 6410016
Fax: 01793 424291
Email: Customer.Feedback@thameswater.co.uk

15 July2014

Our Ref : 33105857

Water leaks - Silverdale

Dear Mr Lund

I'm writing in response to an email I’ve received from the Consumer Council for Water in relation to an ongoing water leak in Silverdale. They've asked that I look into your complaint and respond to you directly. I tried to call you this afternoon to discuss your complaint but unfortunately I wasn’t able to reach you. Having looked through the history of your complaint and the correspondence between us, I fully appreciate why you’re unhappy with our service.

You first contacted us on 21 September 2013 to let us know a leak was present in Silverdale and on investigation, we found the possible cause was from private pipework in the area. As you’re aware, we're not responsible for water leaks from private pipework but we did all we could to trace where the water was coming from. Water leakage is not an exact science, as water will always find its first available exit, even if it's some distance away. Having said this, I do agree that 9 months does seem a very long time for us to find and fix this water leak.

Several leaks were present in the area of Silverdale at the time of your complaint. We also had reports of leaks in Sydenham Road, Bishopsthorpe Road and Mayow Park and all reports were investigated. We also carried out several repairs to private pipework to find the water source and liaised with the council to try and get this issue resolved.

I'm pleased that the repair was finally carried out on 27 June and that the water leak has finally ceased. I can confirm that the leak we repaired at this time was outside of a block of a flats, and on one of our water valves. The valve was replaced and the leak has now been cured.

I can only apologise for the length of time our investigations took and I completely understand your strength of feeling about this. I've also had a look at your forum and can see that other residents are also unhappy with our service. I would like to extend my apologies to them also. We do strive to give excellent customer service and it is very clear, that on this occasion, we have failed in this. Please be assured that lessons will be learnt from this and going forward, should you need to contact us again, you won’t encounter similar issues

Yours sincerely
Kim New

Customer Resolution

It would be more credible if I hadn't already been told that they still have to go back in with a road closure to repair a valve connecting this supply to the main.

This afternoon I was with one of the new Forest Hill councillors for a South London Press photo op about this other leak, in Manor Mount.



I took that photo Sunday morning, and the hole has since been fixed - sort of. There's still water seeping from it, and another place in the middle of the road. Anyway, we had our photos taken, so look out for it in this Friday's SLP.

Researching some quote to give the reporter, I found a statement from the Chair of OfWat to the effect that the tax structures of water companies are "morally questionable" - and this was the former CEO of Anglian Water, whose company breached competition law while he was in charge. So this is who they appoint to preside over the body designed to make water companies act more for the public interest.

What a farce.

[Tim Lund]

I've had a couple of emails related to this today. One in connection with another local problem - location withheld - where it appears Thames Waste's sewer rats are infringing someone's cellar. The other from Kate Gould of the South London Press to say that the art work shown previously on this thread apparently infringes Thames Water's copyright.

Obviously, if Thames Waste want to make themselves look ridiculous, I will move to end the possible infringement of their copyright.



Thames Vermin

Source here