After one of the driest summers on record, thousands of people in Britain have been left without water. Camilla Royle spoke to residents in east London about living with water shortages. Photos by Dave Gilchrist
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Sunday 23 August 2026
Housing association workers deliver water for tenants in the buildings (Photo: Dave Gilchrist)
Hundreds of residents at nine blocks of flats in the Devons Road estate in east London have been left without regular running water since late last year.
In one of the blocks, Shillingford House, Rahana told Socialist Worker that it has gone on so long that it has “become normal”. “We have just had to start living with it,” she said.
“Some days it’s okay for a couple of days,” she explained. “And then suddenly, out of the blue, the water has gone. You can be in the shower and suddenly it disappears.
“We have to fill buckets. We have to use the washing machine before 7am. You are just trying to catch the water before it all goes.”
Rahana says that with an elderly mother-in-law in the house as well as young children, the “main issue is the toilet.” The household can sometimes go for hours without water to flush it.
“We have kids going to school. They can be running late and there is no water to wash their face,” she says.
Not having a reliable water supply puts people’s lives on hold. Rahana said she had tried to invite guests to visit her home but she had to explain to them that there was no running water.
Her neighbour, Kowsar, also spoke about the uncertainty of not knowing whether water will flow the next time he turns on the tap.
“Sometimes we don’t have drinking water at all,” he told Socialist Worker. “You wake up and you want to drink some water, and there is none. It’s just sudden.
“It affects so much. The washing machine does not have enough water coming so clothes don’t wash properly. It’s very difficult to wash dishes. It’s very hard.”
He said that sometimes there is no cold water, so the family uses hot water, but that drives up the gas bill. And he has been offered no compensation—not “a single penny” off the water bill.
Water delivery only happens occassionally (Photo: Dave Gilchrist)
Last Thursday morning, workers from the housing association Poplar Harca could be seen delivering drinking water to the residents in the five-storey block. They left 15 litres at the door of each flat.
“Funny how as soon as it’s in the news we are getting water,” said Maria, watching the workers arrive. “I’ve had water delivered once since November.”
Rahana confirmed that this was the first time the housing association had delivered water without the tenants having to phone and ask for it.
And, some tenants report waiting on the phone for more than an hour to get through to someone to ask for water.
Rahana said that her family had been going out and buying their own bottled water—not something they would usually do.
Another resident of Shillingford House said she wanted water delivered from the housing association. But they came at a time when the tap happened to be running.
The water supply was “very disturbed most of the time”. But “they saw that the tap was on and didn’t give me any water. They said, ‘No. You have tap water’.”
Even though now it is arriving, the bottled water is “just enough for ddrinking,” she said.
“It just affects you. You can’t have a shower when you want. There’s been times when I want to go out but I can’t have a shower,” Maria told Socialist Worker.
“I work 14-hour days, so I’m getting home at half past 11pm and there is no water. I’ve had to go into work early and shower at work.
“On Christmas Day, there was no water at all.”
The housing association claims it has “provided alternative washing facilities”. But residents say they have been told to go to Poplar Baths or the Mile End Leisure Centre to wash—both are half an hour’s walk away.
And this is not an acceptable solution, especially for elderly and disabled people.
Maria mentioned that she had been advised to use the facilities at her family’s home. But she has no family members in the area—they live on the other side of Essex.
And there is a fight with the housing association to find a permanent solution to the problems—or even to be taken seriously.
“Originally, they said it’s Thames Water. But Thames Water say it’s nothing to do with them,” said Maria.
“We get letters all the time that just say it’s in progress. We get told just to wait.
“In January, they said it’s to do with a water tank. It just seems like no-one knows. I’ve given up complaining to them—they don’t care.”
The supplier Thames Water has said that the problems of low water pressure are due to “extensive new development in the area”. And this rings true for some residents.
Who’s really feeling the heat this summer?
There are several new apartment blocks springing up in the area, such as the Waterside development, with 86 new homes.
“When we first started calling they couldn’t tell us anything,” Rahana told Socialist Worker. “The rumour is they did a new build and maybe they got the pipework wrong.”
Now, nearly eight months after tenants started reporting problems, Poplar Harca plans to install pumps that could help improve the water pressure to the blocks.
Kowsar said, “Basically, they are working on something to get water pressure. They keep sending letters. I think they said it would finish in June and now it’s coming in September.
“It’s been like this for months. They keep sending letters again and again but the work still isn’t done.”
The housing association has delayed doing the work while it consults with leaseholders—those who have bought their property and might see their service charge increase. It is following a process known as section 20.
The mixture of social housing and private ownership on the estate leaves residents frustrated whenever there is a major repair to be done.
But property solicitor Clair Phillips told the Guardian newspaper the delay wasn’t necessary in an emergency.
“In circumstances where works are urgent, such as a prolonged loss of water supply, one would ordinarily expect the landlord to undertake the necessary works without delay and then apply to the first-tier tribunal for dispensation from the section 20 consultation requirements,” she said.
Maria says that in some ways the private tenants on the estate have an even harder time. Private renters can expect to pay £1,000 per month for a bedroom in a shared flat in Shillingford House.
The rooms are marketed to young professionals for the convenient location.
But tenants who rent privately have been left in the dark by the housing association.
“They are not getting water. They didn’t know nothing about this until I told them,” Maria told Socialist Worker
As the climate crisis accelerates, the water shortage will only get worse
The crisis at the Devons Road estate is a window into the world we can expect to see as housing infrastructure struggles to cope with climate breakdown.
A makeshift tap made from a plastic bottle taped to the building (Photo: Dave Gilchrist)
Burst pipes have left some 10,000 homes in London and Essex without running water this summer, sometimes for days at a time.
In another part of the east London borough of Tower Hamlets, residents of Luke House went for nearly five days with no running water after a new water pump was installed that overwhelmed the ageing pipework.
Residents were left queuing up with buckets to collect water to flush the toilets.
“We can’t even cook, we can’t even have a shower in the hot weather,” Rubina told Sky News earlier this month.
Dabil told Socialist Worker the issue is resolved now. But a makeshift tap made from a plastic bottle was still taped to the outside of the building.
Everyone in the 21-storey tower block “was going to one pipe,” said the Luke House resident. “There was a queue for water. It was a very big problem.”
More than two-thirds of England is now in drought, including all of London and Essex, after the driest July since records began.
The water system is struggling as water levels in the reservoirs start to fall meaning companies have to pump more water. There are more leaks as pipes expand in the heat.
But the effects of climate breakdown are felt very differently in Canary Wharf, less than two miles away from Shillingford House.
There, city traders barely notice the heat as they travel from their air conditioned flats to their air conditioned offices along the air conditioned Elizabeth Line.
They can cool off with a swim in the new Sea Lanes outdoor lido. They rarely wonder what might happen if the water runs out.
New apartments, including in Tower Hamlets, are competing with older buildings for water.
And the Labour government’s plans for data centres to support the artificial intelligence (AI) boom will add further strain on water supplies.
There are already at least 20 data centres in the borough of Tower Hamlets and there are plans for more. This includes one at the site of the old Truman Brewery, where there is a campaign to stop the proposals.
Data centres use large volumes of water for cooling servers. Staggeringly, the government doesn’t mention water even once in its policy for delivering AI growth zones.
Unless it takes the water issue seriously, we can expect to see more disasters like the one at Devons Road and it will be the poorest who see their taps run dry.
Some names have been changed