Residents on an estate have blasted their housing association for “unacceptable” outages after they were left without water for “36 hours”.
A total of 23 flats at Cottrill Gardens in Marcon Place, Hackney, were affected by the outage, which housing association Peabody says was caused by an “electrical fault”.
One woman, who lives in a three-bedroom home at the estate, realised she had no running water at 9am on Friday morning (February 10).
She claimed that it took Peabody until Saturday evening to restore power to the central water pump at the estate, 36 hours after the outage was reported.
She said: “On Friday morning, I woke up and turned on the tap and there was no water.
“I then called the Peabody line and let them know the issue and they said they were going to send somebody out on an emergency repair.”
But by Friday evening, the resident claims that nobody had been sent.
At 8pm, Peabody provided each household in the block with a five-litre bottle of water.
Although Peabody sent more water on Saturday (February 11), the resident claimed it was not enough to “even wash the plates”, so decided to use an outdoor water pump further down the road.
She said: “The water pump is very far down the road. I’m able-bodied so could get there, but other people on the estate aren’t.
“There’s a range of different people who live here, including disabled people and babies.”
The repair was finally completed at 9pm that evening, but the resident said the length of time it took to restore running water was “unacceptable”.
The resident, who has lived at Cottrill Gardens since 2005, added that water problems at the estate have become more regular recently.
Her water and electricity had already cut out on February 8, just two days before the estate-wide outage, after a leak from a neighbour's flat.
She also claimed the whole estate was without water for a day in January.
A Peabody spokesperson said: “We are very sorry for the distress the water outage caused customers at Cottrill Gardens.
“There was an electrical fault, which is why some customers found both their electric and water affected.
“We were in touch with customers on Friday night and have been keeping them updated as the repairs have progressed.
“We have now made the necessary repairs and water has been restored to all homes.”
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