London’s flagship shopping street has fully reopened after a huge flood, causing millions of pounds of damage to commercial property retailers.
Oxford Street was flooded by a huge surge of water after an ancient water pipe ruptured, shattering the road and ripping up pavements “like paper” near Marble Arch.
The flood, which tore through the street last Thursday night, was blamed on Thames Water’s failure to replace ageing pipes.
Top commercial property retailers, in London, such as Next, Primark and Superdrug were inundated, losing stock worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.
The 100-year-old, 24-inch pipe split at about 20:30 GMT on Thursday as commercial property stores were shutting. Millions of gallons of water poured into Oxford Street, Park Street and Portman Street and cascaded into basement stock rooms.
The surge was switched off three hours later, but not before causing more than £200,000 damage to 14 commercial property businesses. With the cost of disruption and repairs, the final bill is expected to run into several figures.
Commercial property retailer Next closed its doors an hour early as water threatened stock. Staff at commercial property retailer Superdrug desperately tried to move stock to safety as water poured through the walls.
Shaima Shejuti said: “It was a big explosion in the pipe. The loss adjusters apologised for the water and sewage but we just needed it cleared up.”
Primark’s commercial property human resources office had its ceiling destroyed by the flood, which also took out the electrics. Staff worked all night to try and get the store in working condition for next day’s trading.
A furious Boris Johnson wrote to the Ofwat, the regulator of water and sewage sectors in England and Wales, saying that the “lack of investment” in London’s water mains needs to be critically addressed.
Boris said he wanted Ofwat to make sure Thames Water completes repair work on its network of pipes without raising water bills for Londoners. The pipe, which was over 100 years old, has now been fixed and Westminster engineers are working to resurface the road.
Thames Water split its mains replacement programme in 2009 when the regulator threw out its plans to increase bills by 17 per cent to pay for it.
Westminster council has attempted to lay the blame on Ofwat, saying that the regulator postponed the water company’s investment plan.
A spokesperson for Thames Water said: “The only work Thames Water still have to do is to fix the pavement outside Primark. We are very sorry to everyone who was affected.”
Martin Low, Westminster’s city commissioner for transport said: “The council pressed Ofwat to accept Thames Water’s five-year investment plan in 2010. We are disappointed that it delayed, as it would have accelerated the renewal of water mains like this.”
He further added: “Now the repairs to Oxford Street start to come under the council’s control we expect to get on with the work quickly and effectively – one lane east bound will be open again by Monday evening. If the very good rate of progress continues, we will be in a position to open the entire street by 6pm on Tuesday evening.”
A spokesman said for Ofwat expressed: “Thames Water has sufficient funding to manage its network effectively. We allowed them funding to replace or improve 1,000km of water mains between 2010 and 2015 – more than any other company in England and Wales.”
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