Hello,

Thank you for getting in touch.

We're working hard to respond to all enquiries as fast as we can, and we
will aim to get back to you within 10 working days - but at the moment it
could take us a little longer. We'll contact you as soon as possible, so
you don't need to do anything else at this stage.

If you've got questions regarding your bill please visit our dedicated
help pages - We've got lots of helpful information available online. If
you're struggling or unable to pay your bill, we're here to help over the
phone Monday to Saturday on 0800 980 8800.

If you're moving home, you can tell us by using our online form, or call
us Monday to Saturday on 0800 980 8800.

Remember, if you have an emergency such as sewer flooding or you have no
water, we are on hand to help 24/7 through our helpline - just call 0800
316 9800.

Best regards,

Thames Water Customer Care.

Visit us online www.thameswater.co.uk , follow us on twitter
www.twitter.com/thameswater or find us on www.facebook.com/thameswater.
We’re happy to help you 24/7.

Thames Water Limited (company number 2366623) and Thames Water Utilities
Limited (company number 2366661) are companies registered in England and
Wales, both are registered at Clearwater Court, Vastern Road, Reading,
Berkshire RG1 8DB. This email is confidential and is intended only for the
use of the person it was sent to. Any views or opinions in this email are
those of the author and don’t necessarily represent those of Thames Water
Limited or its subsidiaries. If you aren’t the intended recipient of this
email, please don’t copy, use, forward or disclose its contents to any
other person – please destroy and delete the message and any attachments
from your system.

Thames Water
Customer Relations
Customer Service
PO Box 436
Swindon
SN38 1TU

Telephone:  0800 009 4995

Email: [Thames Water Commercial Services Limited request email]

15 July 2022

Our Ref: 33490613

Environmental Information Regulations request

Councillor Turrell

I am writing in response to your email dated 8 July regarding a serious
water pipe burst on Hayes Lane over the last few years.

I trust you find the below information helpful in addressing the questions
you’ve raised in your most recent email dated 8 July. For ease of
reference, I’ve copied your question and answered it directly beneath
this.

• How many liters of Water does Thames Water estimate that it has lost
through burst pipes in the Hayes & Coney Hall area (London Borough of
Bromley) since 2010? If the data allows please could you also specify
the number for Hayes Lane?
I’ve passed your request for the above information to our
Environmental Information Request (EIR) team. They’ll collect the data
and will contact you direct with their response within 20 working
days.

• How much does Thames Water estimate that this has added to customers’
bills since 2010?

Any leak in our network will not have any direct impact on our
customer’s bills. Our freshwater recharges include sourcing, cleaning,
storing, and delivering water to our customers. We also add fixed
charges for covering our essential running costs like maintaining
pipes and handling inquiries. We follow our regulator, Ofwat to set
fair charges for our customers.

If a customer has a water meter, we only charge them for water used by
them. Similarly, for any customers without a water meter, we switch
them to assessed household charged tariff. This is based on the
typical amount of water used by customers in homes with a similar
number of bedrooms. Most customers without water meters are billed
using their rateable value, which is set by the government based on
home location and size.
 

• What has been the average time (weeks/ months) for compensation
payments to have been issued to customers whose property has been
damaged following a burst pipe since 2010.

Each claim is dealt individually with by the claimant, whether it be
with the property owner or the insurers, and another major factor
could be depending on the extent of damage and whether a customer has
had to move out of a property being uninhabitable. Once we receive a
claims form from our customer, one of our team members will contact
the customer within 10 working days.

Depending on the value of a claim, be it for an individual property or
for an event (burst affecting multiple properties), once the value
exceeds £3,500, the claim would then be handled by our insurers Willis
Towers Watson

Additionally, there is a 6-year timescale for a customer to submit
their claim from the date of the incident.

Next steps

I trust you’ve found the above information helpful. As there isn’t
anything further, I can assist with at this time, I’ll bring your case
with me to a close today. Please be assured, that if you’ve any further
queries or need additional support, your case can be re-opened at any
time.

It may be helpful to mention, for all email contact, we’ll respond within
a maximum of 10 working days. The quickest way to contact me is by
calling 0800 009 4995. I’m usually available between 8 am and 5 pm, Monday
to Friday. If I’m not available when you call, you can leave a message and
I’ll return your call as soon as possible, or one of my colleagues will be
happy to help.

Contacting us in future

You may be interested to know, for future reference, you can report some
of the most common issues, such as blockages and leaks, on our
website [1]here. If no existing issues show up after searching your
address, click on the map to start a new report.

For future reference, the quickest way to get in touch to report issues,
or for any other advice, is to contact us on [2]Twitter or [3]Facebook.
We’re available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Alternatively, should you
prefer to call us, our Customer Contact Centre is available on 0800 316
9800. Lines are always open.

Yours sincerely 

Shinjini Ganguly

CEO Office - Manager

To view the Thames Water complaints procedure, please [4]click here

────────────────────────

Visit us online www.thameswater.co.uk , follow us on twitter
www.twitter.com/thameswater or find us on www.facebook.com/thameswater.
We’re happy to help you 24/7.

Thames Water Limited (company number 2366623) and Thames Water Utilities
Limited (company number 2366661) are companies registered in England and
Wales, both are registered at Clearwater Court, Vastern Road, Reading,
Berkshire RG1 8DB. This email is confidential and is intended only for the
use of the person it was sent to. Any views or opinions in this email are
those of the author and don’t necessarily represent those of Thames Water
Limited or its subsidiaries. If you aren’t the intended recipient of this
email, please don’t copy, use, forward or disclose its contents to any
other person – please destroy and delete the message and any attachments
from your system.

References

Visible links
1. https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlo...
2. https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlo...
3. https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlo...
4. https://www.thameswater.co.uk/media-libr...

Hello,

Thank you for getting in touch.

We're working hard to respond to all enquiries as fast as we can, and we
will aim to get back to you within 10 working days - but at the moment it
could take us a little longer. We'll contact you as soon as possible, so
you don't need to do anything else at this stage.

If you've got questions regarding your bill please visit our dedicated
help pages - We've got lots of helpful information available online. If
you're struggling or unable to pay your bill, we're here to help over the
phone Monday to Saturday on 0800 980 8800.

If you're moving home, you can tell us by using our online form, or call
us Monday to Saturday on 0800 980 8800.

Remember, if you have an emergency such as sewer flooding or you have no
water, we are on hand to help 24/7 through our helpline - just call 0800
316 9800.

Best regards,

Thames Water Customer Care.

Visit us online www.thameswater.co.uk , follow us on twitter
www.twitter.com/thameswater or find us on www.facebook.com/thameswater.
We’re happy to help you 24/7.

Thames Water Limited (company number 2366623) and Thames Water Utilities
Limited (company number 2366661) are companies registered in England and
Wales, both are registered at Clearwater Court, Vastern Road, Reading,
Berkshire RG1 8DB. This email is confidential and is intended only for the
use of the person it was sent to. Any views or opinions in this email are
those of the author and don’t necessarily represent those of Thames Water
Limited or its subsidiaries. If you aren’t the intended recipient of this
email, please don’t copy, use, forward or disclose its contents to any
other person – please destroy and delete the message and any attachments
from your system.

Thames Water Utilities Limited
EIR Requests
Clearwater Court
Vastern Road
Reading
Berkshire
RG1 8DB

Email: [1][email address] 

5 August 2022

Our Ref: EIR-22-23-140

Environmental Information Regulation (EIR) Request
Dear Councillor Turrell

Thank you for your e-mail dated 8 July 2022.  Please note that I am only
responding to the environmental question asked in your e-mail (Question
A), and that the remaining questions will be answered separately by other
parts of the business.  Please see our response below to your request as
set out in your e-mail.

Your Request

How many litres of Water does Thames Water estimate that it has lost
through burst pipes in the Hayes & Coney Hall area (London Borough of
Bromley) since 2010? If the data allows, please could you also specify the
number for Hayes Lane?

Our Response

I am sorry but we are not able to provide the information that is being
requested, for the following reasons:

The way our water supply network is structured does not align with London
Borough or Ward boundaries, we utilise district metering areas (DMAs) and
flow monitoring zones (FMZs) to ‘split’ our network and monitor the usage
and flows in/out of each DMA or FMZ; thereby calculating our leakage
figures. The various DMAs in and around Hayes & Coney Hall overlap the
Ward only partially, whilst also overlapping the neighbouring Wards, thus
providing a leakage figure for just the Hayes & Coney Hall Ward is not
possible. The same logic applies when trying to view our network through
other external boundaries, for example postcode areas, or London Boroughs.

Whilst we have a record for the number of bursts occurring in any
particular area of our network, we do not assign a litre value to each
burst, nor do we use an average to estimate the amount water lost. This
also explains why we could not specify the amount of litres lost on bursts
on Hayes Lane, for example.

However, we do make an estimate of the amount of water saved through
leakage repair activity. The nominal amount assumed to have been saved in
the Bromley area over the past twelve years is 106.86 Ml.

Disclaimer

The information provided with this letter is taken from the information we
hold on our records as at the date indicated. We cannot guarantee the
accuracy of this information and it should not be relied on for any
purpose.

Retention

Please note that we will also retain a record of your request to allow us
to evidence our compliance with the law relating to EIR.

Charging

Although in accordance with our published charging regime, we are able to
charge fees/costs for dealing with requests under EIR, on this occasion,
we have chosen not to do so. We reserve the right to charge in accordance
with the fees published on our website for any requests, now or in the
future.

For more information about our interim charges scheme please click
[2]here  (please note that you will need to use an up to date web browser
and that the web pages will not support access by an older browser, such
as Internet Explorer).

Should you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Internal Review

If you are dissatisfied with the handling of your request, you have the
right to ask for an internal review.  Internal review requests should be
submitted within three months of the date of receipt of this response and
should be addressed to the Environmental Information Requests Manager and
emailed to [3][email address]

If you are dissatisfied with the outcome of the internal review, you can
apply, without charge, to the Information Commissioner, who will consider
whether Thames Water has complied with its obligations under the EIR, and
can require Thames Water to remedy any problems. You can find out more
about how to do this, and about the EIR in general, on the Information
Commissioner’s website at: [4]www.ico.org.uk. 

Yours sincerely

Paul

Paul Bridgens

Data Protection Advisor

Data Protection Investigations

Visit us online www.thameswater.co.uk , follow us on twitter
www.twitter.com/thameswater or find us on www.facebook.com/thameswater.
We’re happy to help you 24/7.

Thames Water Limited (company number 2366623) and Thames Water Utilities
Limited (company number 2366661) are companies registered in England and
Wales, both are registered at Clearwater Court, Vastern Road, Reading,
Berkshire RG1 8DB. This email is confidential and is intended only for the
use of the person it was sent to. Any views or opinions in this email are
those of the author and don’t necessarily represent those of Thames Water
Limited or its subsidiaries. If you aren’t the intended recipient of this
email, please don’t copy, use, forward or disclose its contents to any
other person – please destroy and delete the message and any attachments
from your system.

References

Visible links
1. mailto:[email address]
2. https://corporate.thameswater.co.uk/abou...
3. mailto:[email address]
4. http://www.ico.org.uk/

Thank you for contacting Thames Water.  This inbox is for EIR requests
which we aim to respond to within 20 working days.  We may contact you
with any questions we have on your request and if we are unable to
complete your request within 20 days, we will contact you to agree a new
timescale.

If you wish to contact us in the meantime, please email
[email address]  and make sure you refer to your original
request.

Visit us online www.thameswater.co.uk , follow us on twitter
www.twitter.com/thameswater or find us on www.facebook.com/thameswater.
We’re happy to help you 24/7.

Thames Water Limited (company number 2366623) and Thames Water Utilities
Limited (company number 2366661) are companies registered in England and
Wales, both are registered at Clearwater Court, Vastern Road, Reading,
Berkshire RG1 8DB. This email is confidential and is intended only for the
use of the person it was sent to. Any views or opinions in this email are
those of the author and don’t necessarily represent those of Thames Water
Limited or its subsidiaries. If you aren’t the intended recipient of this
email, please don’t copy, use, forward or disclose its contents to any
other person – please destroy and delete the message and any attachments
from your system.