Reading Borough Council has slammed Thames Water for neglecting residents after so many houses were left without water over the last few days. 

Labour Group and Council Leader Jason Brock said: "Reading Labour has been calling for Thames Water to get their act together for a long time, and even brought them to a Council Committee to scrutinise their poor performance across the town."

The council leader went on to say that this latest issue is on a larger scale and Thames Water's support to, and communication with, residents has been unacceptably poor.

"Credit is due especially to Cllr Mark Keeping for pushing on behalf on his residents in Kentwood to get updates and a resolution. 

"Residents understandably feel that Thames Water simply don't care about them."

Issues were first reported in RG8 and RG31 on Saturday (January 20) just after midday with RG1 and RG30 later reported having issues.

Subsequently, several school closures took place and a water bottle station was set up at Tesco Extra on Napier Road.

A Thames Water spokesperson said: “We’re really sorry to customers in the Reading, Pangbourne, Tilehurst, and nearby areas who continue to experience low water pressure.  

“We have over 9 tankers supplying water in the area to meet demand and improve water pressure. We also have over 50 engineers in the area fixing leaks and removing airlocks from our network and are repairing over 10 burst water mains, following the cold weather last week.  

“We expect water pressure to improve in the coming days as we carry out repairs and as reservoir levels increase, following a technical issue at Pangbourne Water Treatment Works, which was resolved on Saturday.  

“We have also re-opened the bottled water station at Tesco Extra on Napier Road which will remain open until 9pm tonight (Tuesday 23 January). We continue to deliver bottled water to customers on our Priority Service Register.  

“All our customers should now have some water supply, but it may be at a lower pressure than normal. Customers with no water should contact us on 0800 316 9800. 

“We’d like to thank our customers for their continued patience while we fix this, they can find the latest updates by visiting our website.”    

The bottled water station will remain open until 21:00 this evening.

Locals are reminded to please be considerate and don’t take more than they need.