Western Road Water Main Burst Disrupts Brighton Businesses for Fourth Day
Water erupts through the fencing on Western Road during the burst main (Image: Tim graichi cucarella)
A burst water main has flooded Western Road for four days running, with Southern Water's contractors still unable to confirm the fix has held as of Friday 9 October, leaving businesses between Holland Road and Montpelier Road without running water and furious at the disruption. Photos and video from the scene show water pouring from beneath the carriageway outside Massey and Rox Life, with traders reporting cancelled appointments, flooded cellars and clients left stranded mid treatment with no water to rinse off.
The leak was discovered as contractors carried out the council's long planned reconstruction of Western Road, a 45 day scheme between Holland Road and Montpelier Road that started on 28 September. Ward councillors Cllr Andrei Czolak and Cllr Ollie Sykes, and cabinet member for Transport and City Infrastructure Cllr Trevor Muten, have posted a series of on site updates since the leaks were first found, and all have faced residents' anger directly as the fix has repeatedly slipped.
How the leak unfolded
The reconstruction works first unearthed two leaks below the surface of Western Road on Tuesday 6 October. According to Cllr Czolak, both were isolated and dealt with quickly by Southern Water, who confirmed the leaks were on their own assets. It was a third leak, which emerged the following day, that turned a contained repair job into the flooding seen in the photos and video on this page.
That third leak was on the main line serving properties along much of Western Road. Isolating it immediately would have cut off water to a large stretch of the road, so Southern Water and the contractors made a deliberate decision to let the water keep running rather than shut the supply off straight away, routing as much of it as they could down the nearest drain with a temporary run off while they prepared the proper fix. It is that decision, explained by Cllr Czolak himself, that accounts for the dramatic footage of water fountaining up through the carriageway for most of Wednesday.
TUESDAY 6 OCTOBER
Two leaks are found below the surface during the reconstruction works. Southern Water isolates and deals with both quickly, confirming the leaks are on their own assets.
WEDNESDAY 7 OCTOBER, DAYTIME
A third leak emerges on the main line. Rather than isolate it and cut water to a large stretch of the road, Southern Water and contractors let it run, directing most of the water down the nearest drain with a temporary run off, producing the water fountaining through the carriageway seen in footage from the day.
WEDNESDAY 7 OCTOBER, 8.30PM
Contractors prepare to isolate the line to carry out repairs overnight, aiming to have it rectified by Thursday morning. A contractor checks basements of businesses still open that evening and finds no issues.
THURSDAY 8 OCTOBER
The overnight team cannot access the main pipe because it is encased in concrete. A second team isolates the supply that morning to cut through the pipe and fit a temporary seal, restoring water within the hour, before returning at midnight to replace the damaged length of pipe for good.
What that timeline shows is a problem that kept growing rather than one single leak badly handled. Each fix bought a few hours before the next complication, encased concrete, a main line that couldn't simply be shut off, a repair that needed heavier equipment than expected, and each one has pushed the full resolution further into the following day.
ImJustBrighton on the scene
ImJustBrighton visited Western Road this week to film the flooding first hand. The footage below shows the extent of the standing water and the fenced off section of carriageway that traders have had to work around since Tuesday.
What the footage makes clear is how little separates the working shopfronts from the open trench itself, just a single line of pedestrian barriers between customers walking in off the street and a section of road still being actively repaired.
"They just do not care": businesses say they've had enough
For traders on Western Road, the leak has compounded a week of disruption that was already causing real financial pain. One salon owner on the road wrote publicly that the council "have not listened to us regarding this work on our street" and said she had asked for the works to be sectioned, a request she says was turned down on cost grounds. Her account is one of the clearest pictures yet of what the last week has actually looked like for the people trying to run a business on the road while it is dug up around them.
"The economic impact of the resurfacing is catastrophic in so many ways. It feels just reckless and irresponsible as they are gambling with real people's livelihoods and jobs. They just do not care. We have clients with colour on their hair and no water to rinse off. Cancelled clients, low footfall and anxiety off the scale. Water pipes bursting daily."
The detail about hair colour is not a throwaway line. Salons and barbers along the road depend on a working water supply minute to minute, and a cut off mid appointment means a cancelled booking, a client sent home with product still in their hair, and in some cases a full refund. Traders say they have not been told exactly when the latest fix will be completed, with some fearing the wider disruption on the road could run for around six weeks in total, on top of whatever further days are lost to the leak itself.
Not every reaction on the road has been angry. Local resident Ollie Wilson King took a more sardonic view of the chaos, writing that "Western Road in Hove could be renamed River Street" after contractors "burst a water main, cutting off half the district's water supply and flooding the street to boot! Chaos!" The joke landed because, for several hours on Wednesday, the comparison was not much of an exaggeration: footage from the scene shows a steady stream of water running the length of the dug up carriageway past the shopfronts.
What Cllr Czolak posted: why the water was left running
Ward councillor Cllr Andrei Czolak has given the fullest public explanation yet of the decisions taken on site, posting a detailed update on the evening of Wednesday 7 October after speaking to Southern Water's contractors alongside Cllr Muten.
"The reconstruction works on Western Road unearthed two leaks below surface yesterday, these were isolated and dealt with quite quickly by Southern Water, who confirmed the leaks were on their assets. A further leak emerged earlier today. Because this was the main line that service's properties adjacent to much of Western Road, it was felt that isolating it would cause a lot of inconvenience, so the decision was made to allow the water to run, hence the water feature we saw for much of the day. The contractors carrying out the road works were able to put together a temporary run off, to ensure most of the water was directed down the nearest drain."
Czolak also addressed the risk of damage spreading into the shops themselves, and flagged that two fellow councillors were already working with Southern Water on preventing a repeat further along the road.
"As of 8:30pm contractors were getting ready to isolate the line, in order to carry out the repairs to ensure this is rectified by morning. The guy we spoke to had managed to access a couple of basements of the businesses still open this evening and couldn't see any issues. It may be worth double checking first thing and notify Southern Water if you notice any issues. Separately, officers were able to let Cllr Ollie Sykes and I know earlier this evening that they're currently working with Southern Water to map out their assets and assess them for any weaknesses so that any further excavation work going ahead, is aware of any potential problems and can act accordingly."
Czolak ended the post by inviting residents to email him directly with any issues, a level of direct access not every ward gets during a disruption like this one.
What Cllr Muten posted: the concrete problem underground
Cabinet member Cllr Trevor Muten has posted two detailed updates of his own since the leak began, both acknowledging residents' frustration directly rather than deflecting it, which is itself worth noting given how often this kind of disruption gets a single line statement and nothing more. In his fullest update, posted on Thursday 8 October, he said he had been on site again that day with Southern Water, affected businesses, council contractors and ward councillor Cllr Andrei Czolak.
"Southern Water are on site fixing the leak today and will return tonight to replace a length of main. This means that during both periods, water will be switched off. Having spoken with several businesses today worried about the severe impact of no water, it is recognised this is a problem and unacceptable to take this long to fix."
Muten went further than most councillors would in a situation like this, saying he shared "the disappointment of many" that assurances given by Southern Water the day before had not resulted in a fix. Not everyone online was convinced the update changed much. Local resident Mike Moore replied to one of Muten's posts with a single sarcastic line, "It's going well isn't it Trevor," a comment that picked up more reactions than the post itself, a sign of how thin residents' patience has worn after three days of promises.
The concrete casing that kept stalling the repair
What has actually made this leak so hard to fix sits beneath the road surface rather than on top of it. Muten explained that from Thursday's site meeting, it became clear the water main was encased in concrete, which is not how it should have been laid in the first place.
"The concrete around the water main had to be broken and was a larger job requiring more equipment today. I raised the method used with the project team and sought an action plan. Brighton & Hove City Council has reviewed the methods to break out the concrete and will use a different method to avoid this reoccurring."
Czolak's own Thursday update, posted separately, matches Muten's account almost exactly and adds the clearest timeline yet for when the road might actually be done with this.
"The team I spoke to last night weren't able to access the main pipe due to being encased in concrete. Another team came in this morning and have isolated the supply so they could cut through the pipe. They're in the process of putting in a temporary seal, to allow water to be turned on within the next hour. They'll then return this evening at midnight, isolate the water supply again to replace the length of pipe that is damaged. This should see the issue resolved properly by tomorrow morning."
That puts the earliest realistic end point for the leak itself at Friday 9 October, assuming the midnight repair goes to plan, a repair that, after three days of assurances not holding, Western Road's traders have every reason to want to see with their own eyes before they believe it.
The damage inside the shops
The flooding hasn't stayed on the road. Staff at one florist on Western Road say their cellar has taken in water from the leak, ruining stock stored below ground, on top of the loss of running water upstairs. It is the kind of damage that doesn't show up in a photo of the carriageway, and traders say they still don't know whether Southern Water or the council will cover the cost of it. Czolak's own update on Wednesday noted that a contractor had checked a couple of basements of businesses still open that evening and found no issues at that point, but advised residents to double check their own properties and notify Southern Water directly if anything turned up.
Several businesses have said they were told repair crews would be "coming back at midnight" to fix the latest problem, language that matches both councillors' own updates almost word for word, only for the issue to still be there the following morning. That pattern, a fix promised for overnight that hasn't held by the next day, is exactly what played out between Wednesday and Thursday this week, and it's the main reason trust in the timeline has worn thin on the road.
Why Western Road is being dug up in the first place
The leak has struck in the middle of a scheme the council had already billed as long overdue. Western Road carries around 700 buses a day between Hove and the city centre, alongside thousands of cars, lorries, cyclists and pedestrians, and residents and businesses had been raising concerns about the state of the road for years before work was approved.
Resurfacing work was signed off as part of the council's capital programme back in February. But an assessment carried out that same month found the carriageway's problems went far beyond a standard resurface, with significant deterioration meaning sections now need to be rebuilt as well as resurfaced. The scheme that followed includes deeper excavation, reconstruction of damaged sections, drainage repairs and improvements to underlying infrastructure, work the council says will leave a far more durable surface and cut down on future repairs.
"The road surface is not good enough. This major investment will repair the road surface, tackle potholes and other longstanding defects to create safer, smoother and more reliable journeys for everyone who uses it. While work on this scale will cause disruption, it's essential to ensure the road is fit for the future."
The Red Route fight waiting behind it
The works are also the precursor to a planned Red Route along the resurfaced stretch between Holland Road and Montpelier Road, replacing the current double yellow lines with double red lines enforced by CCTV cameras. The council says the change would cut down on anti-social parking that has long caused congestion and safety problems on the road, and the scheme would also bring ten new loading bays and more disabled parking bays along the route.
It follows a public consultation that received more than a thousand responses, with the council saying feedback showed more support for the Red Route than against it. Cllr Muten has pointed to similar schemes already in place elsewhere in the city as evidence it can work.
"It has a long history of anti-social parking which is dangerous and causes congestion. Red Route schemes in London Road and Lewes Road have shown how they can make our streets safer and cleaner while maintaining footfall so these communities can continue to thrive. We also know that, if introduced, this will be a big change, so we'll continue to listen and monitor the road carefully during the first year and make improvements where needed."
It is also, as the angry salon owner quoted earlier made clear, exactly the part of the scheme some traders are now bracing to fight hardest against, on top of a week most of them did not expect to spend without running water at all.
What happens next
On Czolak's account, the earliest the leak itself should be fully resolved is Friday 9 October morning, after Southern Water's midnight return to replace the damaged length of pipe for good. The council says it has also changed the method it will use to break out concrete for the rest of the works, specifically to stop this same delay happening again further along the road.
Beyond the leak, the wider 45 day reconstruction is still expected to run its course, with phased closures continuing to minimise the overall length of disruption and pedestrian access kept open wherever it's safe to do so. Traders say the real test now is whether the council and Southern Water can keep to a timeline for once, after a week in which every assurance given on site has been followed by another delay.
Anyone experiencing loss of water supply, low pressure or damage from the leak is advised to contact Southern Water directly on 0330 303 0335.
Read the council's full announcement on the Western Road works →
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Western Road Red Route Approved by Cabinet, Now Called In: What the Council's Papers Say Before the 6 October Meeting →