"Frustration" at Worcester Park Thames Water roadworks

WPC

7 Aug 2026

The ongoing roadworks that are disrupting residents and businesses in Worcester Park have attracted a lot of attention and frustration.

To try to get answers on what was going on, we wrote to Thames Water for answers to some of the questions that residents were putting to us as the elected representatives, and that Council Officers were unable to answer.

Unfortunately, there was also a lot of misinformation shared by some online commentators.

After hearing back from Thames Water and Council Officers, we thought it would be helpful to share more information.

We have also written up our response to several of the misleading claims about these roadworks, which you can read here.

HOW WERE THESE WORKS SCHEDULED?

First of all, contrary to our initial understanding, the work to repair the sewer collapse at the end of Green Lane last week were planned works, and not emergency works.

The initial permit application for this work was submitted in March after the sewer collapse was identified, but following feedback from Sutton Council, the contractor was asked to resubmit the permit application to align the works with the summer holiday period, and this was done.

Delaying the repair any further would have increased the risk of wastewater escaping from the damaged sewer, potentially leading to external flooding from the sewer. In a worst-case scenario, this could have resulted in internal property flooding, with associated impacts on local residents and the environment - certainly not a pleasant outcome.

The scheduling of the work by Sutton Council meant that the disruption was delayed from peak term time into the summer holiday period, where traffic levels are lower, to minimise disruption.

WHY DO WE NOW HAVE MORE WORKS?

As we shared with residents in a post over the weekend, the works happening this week on Central Road at the end of Longfellow Road are to provide a new fresh water supply to a residential address.

The work was deliberately delayed and scheduled during the summer holidays to avoid the peak traffic times, and also to avoid clashing with the sewer works that happened last week. Once again, this was deliberate work by Sutton Council to minimise disruption to residents.

SO WHAT WILL WE LEARN FROM ALL THIS DISRUPTION?

The main issue that was identified as not working properly was the light phasing and timings of the temporary traffic lights. This was a particular issue for the exit from The Brook pub. The intention was for that phase to only operate when there was a vehicle waiting to exit. Residents and Councillors all reported that this was not the case while observing the exit on site.

Another issue with the temporary traffic lights was the lack of coordination of phases between the existing traffic lights at Station Approach and the temporary lights. There needed to be careful phasing of these two sets of lights to maximise throughput, but that didn’t seem to be happening. We will follow up with Sutton Council to ask what can be done to improve the traffic monitoring next time.

We will also ask if Sutton Council can insist on extended hours of work on site to make sure work is done as quickly as possible, and get roads opened sooner.

We also agree with residents that information on upcoming works hasn’t been shared well enough. As new councillors, we want to change this - so here we will be sharing updates on our Facebook page, and via emails like this, so that residents can see all upcoming planned works happening in Worcester Park North and South that the Council are aware of.

We have also requested that Thames Water and other utility providers share more information with local residents more regularly about upcoming works they have scheduled. We will keep working with these firms to push them to take more responsibility for updates and provide explanations for works that are happening.