BUSINESSES are counting their losses after many were left without water for nearly 12 hours over the weekend.

Residents and businesses in the SN1 and SN3 area saw their supply suddenly stop shortly before 8pm on Sunday. But despite assurances it would be fixed within hours, it was still impacting many customers on Monday morning.

Thames Water dispatched engineers to the area as soon as they became aware of the issue and many were still on site at East Wichel Way yesterday morning to try and fix the burst water pipe.

Bank Holiday Sunday was a busy trading day and venues in the Wood Street and Victoria Road areas were packed with customers.

With bar staff unable to wash glasses or use their soda fountain guns, many hit the shops in search of emergency supplies whereas others were forced to close.

The Old Bank were forced to serve drinks in paper cups due to hygiene concerns of not having any water to clean glasses and plates before closing - a decision which proprietor Manni Madhani said he had no choice but to make.

“We were able to serve the customers we had but after that we had to close completely,” he said.

“I also closed the bar upstairs but I know some others remained open so I don’t know how they managed to make everything sanitary.

“We just had no idea what was going on and Sunday was our busiest day of the week and that is the day we have to make the money to pay our bills.

"We suffered from labour costs, the loss of business and everything else so we were badly affected. The customers were disappointed by the fact we had to close too.

“When it first went off, Thames Water tweeted it would be two hours but every time that passed, they said it had been fixed when it hadn’t.

“I’ve had to close yesterday as well.”

It was also a busy time for other frustrated businesses including Los Gatos where owner Shareen Campbell had to close her doors and cancel reservations. She is now going to make a formal complaint to Thames Water.

“We lost about 40 reservations and I will sit down and calculate how much we have lost because it was just chaos,” she said.

“We were fed information in dribs and drabs so we couldn’t tell our staff to stay or go.”

Thames Water’s Twitter account was inundated with complaints from businesses and ordinary residents and refusing to rule out further stoppages, even for those whose supply has been restored yesterday morning, Thames Water provided bottled water supplies just after 9.30am.

But despite the welcomed sight, many had to wait a further two hours before the drivers of the lorries were given the authorisation to hand out supplies.

Residents and businesses were still faced with low pressure and murky water yesterday afternoon.