Villagers told contaminated water from petrol station will last ‘several years’

It is not good news for people who live in a small village in Surrey who have been told their polluted water could take years to fix.

Villagers in Bramley have been plagued with terrible smells and a polluted river for many years now.

But to make matters worse a fuel leak impacting the village will create contamination in the water for years to come.

From May until July, locals were told not to drink the water because of the leak from a petrol station.

Local MP Jeremy Hunt confirmed the bad news to his constituents in a post on Facebook.

‘It will be years not months until the village is free of the petrol contamination,’ the Tory wrote.

‘It’s clear we are making some real progress on clean up but it will still take some time.’

In better news he did say testing showed water samples in the area continued to meet UK standards.

The leak comes from a fuel tank at a petrol station owned by Asda but problems of contamination were reported before it took over the site.

Chris Hardstone works as a landlord at the Jolly Farmer pub and said contamination was nothing new.

He’s even had to close the pub’s former hotel because the smell of contamination was so bad.

‘Back in 2021, our cellar just stank of fumes – and this petrol smell was wafting up into the bar,’ he said.

‘It took ages to get people to come and have a look, but when they did, we had people checking for gas leaks, for fire safety.

‘We were told initially it was mould – but it wasn’t of course. It was a leak from the petrol station.

‘These issues meant we had to close our accommodation section down – so we lost business there.

‘And of course, when word goes around that the local pub stinks of petrol, that affects business too.’

Asda agreed to pay more than £500,000 in community vouchers to villagers impacted.

But locals are also plagued by another major issue – lack of internet.

Some homes have been left without internet since May and Openreach confessed to some bad news during a public meeting on the matter.

The spokesperson said: ‘This is one of the most complicated operations I have been a part of.’

Openreach say it is hard for them to fix underground cables when fuel is still present.

25 homes and businesses who do not have internet access have been given mobile dongles.

A Thames Water spokesperson said: ‘We are aware of a leak on Station Road in Bramley.

‘We are carrying out investigations to identify the cause of the leak and our engineers will be working to undertake the necessary repairs.

‘We are very sorry to local motorists and residents for any disruption caused during this time.’

James Barge, senior director of corporate affairs and communications at Asda, said: ‘The construct of the vouchers was also difficult…We can’t provide cash out of the company into your bank accounts.

‘We are a significant business with massive government structures.

‘We would have had to have been signed off by our board, by directors, by shareholders and ultimately then to our auditors who would then want to know what you’d spent it on.’

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