The Lamp Post and the Water Tap

Today when I woke up I noticed that the water pressure from the bathroom cold water tap (which is fed directly from the mains) was a bit lower than normal. I didn’t think too much of it at the time and when we left for Master F’s football match at 2pm I saw a load of water coming from a hole in the pavement outside a house about four doors down on the other side of the street. Now this house has, for the past year at least, had workmen in the front garden and the pavement digging up a massive hole to repair a major drain problem they’ve suffered. This has also involved them removing a lamp post and eventually a month ago the lamp post was finally returned and the garden restored to some kind of normality. All seemed ok.

Anyway, back to today and when we returned about 4pm none of our cold water taps were working. Panic! Water’s been turned off at the main. That would explain the workmen we passed in the street outside their old haunt operating a small mechanical digger amidst piles of earth and tarmac, etc. Up until about 8pm the men were still there and there was still no water though to be fair the river in the street had dried up. But they left. No word, nothing.

Mrs F spoke with our neighbours who gave us the information that the men could not do anything because the lamp post was in the way! Erm … this is a Sunday night … what are we supposed to do now? A phone call to United Utilities emergency connected me to a rather weary sounding young man who confirmed my neighbours information and stated that the council would be along later tonight to remove the offending lamp post and that the water maintenance men would then continue with mending the supply. I thanked him for his information but said I would have appreciated if the workmen had made some attempt to notify us residents of the street of the current situation before they shot off. The young man then delivered the deadpan line “There are rather a lot of houses affected”. Now that is fair enough as I didn’t know how many houses/people were affected but it does beg the question is there not a way to communicate information to residents about the situation regarding an interrupted water supply instead of the workmen just scooting off (presumably as they were hanging around waiting on the council coming to remove the lamp post so went to get a bite to eat or something) and leaving us to phone the tired man at United Utilities?

As I speak there are now four different vans with lights blazing on the site removing the lamp post. This could be a long night. Oh for a fresh cup of tea!