Anglian Water Boss to Face Questions After Repeated Outages

Anglian Water’s chief executive is to face questions after repeated outages left villages near Market Harborough without water over the bank holiday weekend.

Stuart Andrew, the MP for Daventry, has organised the talks with Mark Thurston after being contacted by residents in East Farndon, where taps ran dry for three days in very hot weather.

It was the tenth outage to affect the village and neighbouring communities this year and no bottled water or alternative supplies were offered.

Farmer Angus Thomas told HFM residents have had enough:

Stuart Andrew, the MP for Daventry, has organised the talks

Mr Andrew said residents had experienced “significant disruption” to their water supply during very warm weather and said it was important they received “clear communication and appropriate support” while issues were being resolved.

He added: “I will be meeting with Anglian Water’s Chief Executive next week, where both this incident and the company’s response to affected residents will be discussed.”

Anglian Water’s chief executive Mark Thurston is to face questions  Pic: Anglian Water

Parish council chairman Bernie Fallon says he is pleased the talks will take place:

Bernie Fallon & Angus Thomas during the water outage

An Anglian Water spokesperson said the problems were caused by one of the pumps not operating at full capacity, affecting customers in the Market Harborough area on two separate occasions over the bank holiday weekend.

The company said teams worked “around the clock” to restore normal service, using restoration tankers to pump additional water into the network to help boost supplies and restore pressure as quickly as possible.

Anglian Water added that it understood going without water during such hot weather had been “really difficult” for residents and local businesses and thanked the community for their patience while the issue was resolved.