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Thousands of businesses, schools and homes have been left without water after a thaw in temperatures caused a number of burst pipes and leaks across networks. Some customers of Anglian Water, Severn Trent, Southern Water, United Utilities and Thames Water were among those affected by the outages. Leaking pipes in London are still affecting around 10,000 homes and businesses who have been left without water or are suffering from very low pressure. Many businesses, schools and health centres were forced to close around the capital as Thames Water resorted to giving away bottled water in two locations.

  Thames Water would not say when households can expect water supplies to return to normal. The company said it was pumping an extra 500 million litres of water a day to help restore supply. They also had 130 teams of engineers finding and fixing leaks across the network. In the meantime, the company is asking customers to take short showers rather than baths and to not leave taps “running unnecessarily and only run washing machines and dishwashers when you have a full load”. Thames Water was criticised by Lambeth councillor Scott Ainslie who deemed the weather a “feeble excuse”. “The country can't slow down every time the temperature falls below zero for a few days”, he said. “They can't get away with a feeble excuse that it's exceptional weather - I think the worst it got to was minus six in London, we've had minus six before.” The councillor also described Streatham High Road as a “ghost town” because so many businesses have been forced to shut for the last few days. In nearby Kent, 5000 households supplied by Southern Water had issues while Severn Trent, a supplied in the Middle of England said that the number of burst pipes was up 4,000 per cent. In Wales, Welsh Water said that between 3,000 and 6,000 homes and businesses were being affected. More businesses were closed across the country.

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