‘It’s dire’: Residents in village that has run out of water furious as they’re unable to flush toilets
People living on one side of a road in an Oxfordshire village are using bottled water to flush their toilets, brush their teeth and boil their vegetables - while their neighbours across the street continue using tapwater.
Some 68 residents living on a road in Northend Village, about 40 miles north of Oxford city centre on the Oxfordshire-Buckinghamshire border, are being forced to live on emergency rations after their water supply stopped amid the hot and dry conditions.
Thames Water, which supplies the area, dispatched water tankers and bottles of water to customers on Wednesday as the country faced the looming threat of drought and with temperatures expected to reach the mid-30s in the coming days.
The company said it was using tankers to help boost supplies and keep up water pressure so more homes do not run out. Pressure remains lower than normal due to technical issues with the Stokenchurch reservoir, it added.
But locals said the problem stretched back to 2018 and that Thames Water should have been "onto it much earlier".
"It's all a bit dire," Caroline Evans, a Northend resident and retired Buckingham County Council worker, said. "It all started when it was very hot a few weeks ago and the water company wasn't doing much. In reality, these problems have been happening since 2018.
"The water company should have been onto it much earlier. I had to ask for the water.
"In the first heatwave, when it was about 40 degrees, the water supply was really bad and we've had to chivvy and push to get help. Communicating with them is really hard."
She added: "We can't flush the toilets... we are also using it [bottled water] to brush our teeth and boil our vegetables.
"The longest we went without water was two to three weeks, that was 2018. Thames Water haven't spent enough money to put this issue right.
"They also don't have the staff, one of the workers here today is actually retired. It was on the news this morning that the chief executive was getting a bonus - but the workers have told me they are scheduled a pay CUT. It is ludicrous."
A spokesperson for Thames Water said: “We realise how inconvenient this is, especially during such hot weather, and appreciate customers’ patience as we work to resolve things.”
An official state of drough is expected to be declared in England’s southwest on Friday following a prolonged spell of dry and hot weather.
Farmers have already shared concerns about the success of their crops, and some have said it is currently too dry to plant oil seed rape which could have knock-on effects on next year’s harvest.
Environmentalists are also sounding the alarm as to the impact of the drought on freshwater ecosystems, including on fish.
On Thursday morning a Met Office amber warning for "extreme heat" came into force.
