Thames Water says water supply to return by Friday

Thousands of households in east London and Essex affected by a major water outage are expected to have supplies restored by Friday after Thames Water completed repairs to three burst mains.

About 10,000 homes were left with low water pressure or no water after a series of bursts in South Woodford over the weekend.

Thames Water said repairs on High Road, Daisy Road and Chigwell Road had now been completed and engineers were working to restore normal service across the network.

The company said teams were "carefully recharging the network", a process that involves gradually increasing water pressure to avoid further problems.

Thames Water said it was "working towards all customers being back in supply by Friday", although it warned recovery times would vary depending on how quickly the network stabilised. The company said some households could regain water sooner.

Tankers and engineering teams were being deployed overnight to help restore supplies "as quickly and safely as possible", Thames Water added.

The disruption began on Saturday when a water main burst on Daisy Road in South Woodford.

A second burst on Chigwell Road followed on Sunday, leading to widespread supply problems across the area.

During the outage, residents reported queuing for hours at bottled water stations, while some customers registered on Thames Water's Priority Services Register said they had not received the support they expected.

Thames Water said it was continuing to support affected customers through bottled water deliveries for vulnerable residents and the operation of bottled water stations.

The company's two bottled water distribution sites were due to close at 21:00 BST on Thursday, with further details on any future provision for today expected later this morning.

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