Coronavirus fears as water supply at flats switched off
- Published
Residents of Foundry Court in Slough have been without water since Friday morning
Hundreds of people have been left without running water for almost four days at a block of flats in Slough.
The supply was cut off to nearly 200 flats in Foundry Court on Friday after pumps failed.
Residents said it was a "disgrace" they had no water to wash with amid the coronavirus outbreak.
The flats' managing agent, Hazelvine, said it had delivered 42 cases of water to residents over the weekend.
Antony Quarrell, 43, who lives in one of the flats with his wife and baby daughter, said: "With us being reminded of the importance of hygiene... I would have expected daily deliveries of large amounts of water and hand sanitizer to each flat as a bare minimum.
"There's been no proactive information sent, no customer support visits and no provision of water.
"It's an absolute disgrace."
He said Hazelvine had told residents they could "only claim back the cost of five litres of water per day from the company - the amount of water typically used to flush the average toilet just once".
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Another resident, who did not want to be named, said: "They should have arranged for temporary toilets given the grave situation."
In a statement, Hazelvine said it expected new pumps to arrive on Tuesday.
It said it had lodged a claim against Thames Water because it believed the problems were initially caused by a "burst main".
It said: "The suggestion that the cost of only five litres of water will be reimbursed... is correct but flawed.
"The context... was that water would be arriving (as it has) and that it would be imprudent to deplete the service charge funds by giving carte blanche to individuals to buy water, when water would be distributed shortly."
Thames Water said its engineers had investigated the loss of supply on Friday and found "the lack of water was a private issue caused by a leaking internal pump".