Residents in Avonhurst House left with no water for nine days

Families were left without water for more than nine days after a pipe burst in Brondesbury.

Furious residents and tenants who live in Avonhurst House, Coverdale Road, contacted Brent Housing Partnership (BHP), which manages the building, before the Diamond Jubilee bank holiday weekend but were left high and dry without water for more than a week.

To add insult to injury, they were given just two bottles of water to keep them going each day.

Disabled Freda Delaney, 66, who is in a wheelchair, has lived in the block of flats for 34 years. She said: “It is disgraceful. To give us two bottles of water each day is disgusting. How were we supposed to wash?

“It is scandalous. The worst thing is my husband told them exactly where the burst pipe was.”

Mrs Delaney’s husband Audie, 72, who is a leaseholder and owns three flats in the building, is worried BHP is going to charge the repair work to him and other leaseholders.

He said: “There are holes everywhere where they have dug up. It is a mess.

“They have now gone back to the first hole they dug and where I originally told them where the leak was. It’s a joke.

“Nine days we have had no water or heating. The contractors should never have left the job over the bank holiday weekend until the job was finished.

“We should not have to pay for it. They should foot the bill for their incompetence and the inconvenience.”

But a BHP spokesman said the water pipes are embedded two metres below the ground which has resulted in difficulty finding the leak.

He added: “This is why it is taking longer to identify and locate the leak. It is currently a process of elimination.

“Due to the fact that there was no water supply, we arranged for two large bottles of drinking water per day to be delivered to residents.

“This is normally a sufficient amount of water to drink throughout the day. We have now temporarily sourced water from a booster pipe for affected residents while we work on resolving the problem.

“We apologise to residents for the delay and inconvenience but we would like to assure them that we have continuously been working to resolve the problem.”