Queue for water – in affluent Surrey

THOUSANDS of households in well-heeled parts of Surrey were left without water yesterday — a day after a drought was declared across more than half of England.

Frustrated families and elderly residents were left waiting in long queues, above, in the sweltering heat for bottled water in Cranleigh Village Way car park yesterday morning.

Thames Water blamed the incident affecting Cranleigh and nearby Dorking on technical issues at a water treatment works and said its engineers were working to fix the problem. After the emergency water station ran out, supermarkets were stripped of bottled water.

Martin Bamford, who chairs the Cranleigh Chamber of Commerce, said Thames Water was ‘completely inept’. ‘I went down to the bottling distribution centre,’ he said. ‘There was a very, very long queue of people — I’d estimate around 300 to 400.’

Local councillor Liz Townsend said: ‘There was a 92-year-old gentleman standing in the queue in the baking hot sun waiting for two two-litre bottles.’