Seeing another one has popped up on South Road, nasty one too, on the pavement, I thought I would share this recent bit from Thames Water…
It would take around 40 years and cost over £20 billion to replace over 150-year-old cast iron pipes across London, according to Thames Water.
I think I’ll have to delete my browser history after that! 
Last week I have spent 30 min listening to problems Thames water experience. There is no doubt that complexity of the water network and physics of water pressure play a major role when a pipe bursts but I get the impression that as organisation they are not very good at predicting problems, nor they are good at explaining what they do to minimise problems occurring.
The headline saying how long it would take to replace all Victorian pipes doesn’t take into account that technology allows them to line pipes inside with plastic which makes them much more reliable. From my briefing it was also interesting to learn that pipes laid in 70s are causing more problems.