East London faces second night of water disruption

Households across 10 postcode areas in east London and Essex face continuing water supply disruption into a second night.

The disruption started when a large water main burst on Chigwell Road in South Woodford on Sunday morning, Thames Water said.

Subsequent pipe damage on Daisy Lane left some homes and businesses across E4, E18, IG2, IG4, IG5, IG6, IG7, IG8, IG9, and RM4 postcodes facing low water pressure or no running water - Thames Water did not say how many customers were impacted.

Thames Water apologised and said its engineers are continuing emergency repair work overnight in an effort to restore supplies to the network.

A temporary bottled water distribution point set up at Fairlop Ice Kingdom on Fairlop Road, Ilford, was closed at 20:00 BST for health and safety reasons.

It is scheduled to reopen at 09:00 on Tuesday.

The Fairlop site replaced an earlier collection point at the Tesco Superstore on Southend Road, which closed on Monday afternoon.

Local resident Sham Ashraf told BBC News earlier told BBC News that roads around the supermarket had become gridlocked.

He said: "Roads are choc-a-block around the Charlie Brown Roundabout on Southend Road.

"Thames Water have told people to stay in their cars at the supermarket and they would take the water to the car, but it's now absolutely gridlocked."

"Doesn't get any easier or better," he added.

Thames Water said its teams been delivering bottled water directly to vulnerable customers' homes who are registered on its Priority Services Register.

Crews remained on site on Monday evening carrying out excavation work and fitting replacement pipework on Daisy Lane while finalising repairs to the damaged pipe on Chigwell Road.

Thames Water warned that even as repairs progressed and water returns, customers may experience lower pressure than usual while full pressure builds in the pipes.

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