On the day the election was called, I turned on the tap but nothing came out. The sudden stoppage was hardly a surprise: I live in a ‘Thames Water hotspot’ and can’t drive ten minutes in any direction without encountering at least one road closure as the water pipes are dug up. It’s got to the point where I mutter, ‘ah, Thames Water’ every time I hit traffic. More often than not, the plastic barricades and temporary traffic lights duly appear, accompanied by signs bidding me not ‘to overtake cyclists’ in the narrow portion of road left.
Such closures punctuate the London suburbs, from the big operation which caused delays at two junctions for four months, to countless little digs at roadsides. I call them ‘digs’ rather than ‘works’: actual workmen, after all, can be hard to spot.
Thames Water, which serves nearly a quarter of England, is in crisis.
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