{"id":407314,"date":"2025-09-08T08:04:14","date_gmt":"2025-09-08T08:04:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/407314\/"},"modified":"2025-09-08T08:04:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-08T08:04:14","slug":"our-charity-could-have-lost-thousands-due-to-thames-water-delay-thames-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/407314\/","title":{"rendered":"Our charity could have lost thousands due to Thames Water delay | Thames Water"},"content":{"rendered":"

I work for a charity providing affordable sheltered housing for older people. In January 2024, we began refurbishing a building that was bequeathed to <\/strong>us.<\/strong><\/p>\n

We paid Thames Water<\/a> to connect a water supply in February 2024. It wasn\u2019t until November that <\/strong>it informed us that <\/strong>it would need permission from Transport for London (TfL) to close part of the road.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Since then, there has been no progress. Thames Water blames TfL which, it claims, keeps asking for extra information and requires 12 working days to respond when it is submitted.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The renovations are now complete but we are unable to <\/strong>rent the properties <\/strong>without a water supply. The delay could be <\/strong>costing the charity up to \u00a36,900 a month in revenue<\/strong>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

JS, <\/strong>London<\/strong><\/p>\n

You first wrote to me at the beginning of March, 13 months after you had paid for the installation. Naively, I hoped that an overture from the press, highlighting the financial hit to your charity, might allow common sense to prevail over process.<\/p>\n

As I was wading in, TfL was requesting yet another document from Thames Water which required another 12 working days to process.<\/p>\n

Thames Water told me that TfL was to blame for repeatedly requesting amendments to its application for the road closure.<\/p>\n

A Thames Water spokesperson said: \u201cWe have been engaging with TfL to secure a date for the works to proceed. We recognise how important this is to the charity.\u201d<\/p>\n

TfL, meanwhile, blamed it all on Thames Water for submitting incomplete applications. Its spokesperson said: \u201cWe have been working with Thames Water to resolve a number of issues with its application, and we continue to handle this in line with the longstanding agreements around permissions and timescales required for these works.\u201d<\/p>\n

The good news was that, after my contact, an installation date was agreed for late May. The bad news: it never happened. It appears that Thames Water had omitted to arrange a traffic management plan. It also omitted to let you know that the works could not proceed.<\/p>\n

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The company breezily told me you would have to wait until August for a new appointment and ignored my questions about compensation.<\/p>\n

Last month, a year and a half after you paid for the installation, the property was finally connected. You are now in negotiations about an appropriate payout from Thames Water.<\/p>\n

We welcome letters but cannot answer individually. Email us at consumer.champions@theguardian.com<\/a> or write to Consumer Champions, Money, the Guardian, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU. Please include a daytime phone number. Submission and publication of all letters is subject to our terms and conditions<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I work for a charity providing affordable sheltered housing for older people. In January 2024, we began refurbishing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":407315,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[51,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-407314","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-uk","10":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115167642516828766","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=407314"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407314\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/407315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}