Thousands of Crawley homes lose water as burst main floods roads and closes A23

Thousands of households across Crawley, West Sussex, were left without running water on Sunday morning after a major pipe burst sent sheets of water cascading across a busy roundabout and into a road underpass. Sussex Police described the incident as a "significant" leak, and officers asked the public to steer clear of the area while emergency services worked to make the scene safe.

Around 9,000 Southern Water customers were affected by the disruption, the utility confirmed, with residents in the Woolborough Road, Holmcroft, Southgate, Tilgate and Furnace Green areas reporting either a complete loss of supply or severe low pressure. The company said it was establishing bottled water stations to help residents who were unable to access drinking water, and that repair crews were already on site.

A Southern Water spokesperson said: "Our teams are on site and working as quickly and safely as possible to repair the burst and restore supplies." The company added that restoring water to customers as quickly as possible remained its highest priority.

The physical impact of the failure was dramatic. Water flooded across the carriageway at and around the Southgate Roundabout in the early hours, with torrents running from one side of the junction to the other before pouring into an underpass. Roads in the vicinity, including Southgate Avenue, Crawley Avenue and a section of the A23 — one of the country's busiest arterial routes linking the south coast to London — were closed as a result.

Delivery driver Martin Lawrence was in the vicinity at about 05:00 BST, when he encountered the flooding at first light. He told BBC Radio Sussex: "I came across this massive flood going across the road." He described how much water was moving through the junction, adding that it was flowing "from one side of the roundabout to the other and going into an underpass." Recalling the scale of the scene, he said: "I've never seen so much water in my life."

The timing and location make the incident particularly unwelcome. Crawley is a large town on the edge of Gatwick Airport, and disruption to the A23 and the roads feeding the Southgate Roundabout can quickly ripple through the wider road network, affecting commuters, airport staff, freight traffic and local bus services. Crawley has also seen water problems in recent months, with the town already in the public eye over Southern Water's performance.

That background gives the episode added significance. Southern Water has been the subject of sustained criticism and regulatory scrutiny over leaks, flooding and its handling of customer compensation, and bursts of this kind are precisely the incidents that drive such complaints. A leak large enough to affect nearly 9,000 properties is a high-profile example of the kind of infrastructure failure that campaigners and customers say has become all too familiar across the utility's network in the south of England.

For the households directly hit, the immediate concerns are practical. Without running water, residents cannot shower, wash clothes, cook hot food or flush toilets, and many will be relying on bottled water and bottled hygiene products until supply is restored. Those who rely on powered home medical equipment, or on water for mobility reasons, are among the most vulnerable. The utility's decision to set up bottled water stations is intended to ease that pressure, but such points are typically limited and often require people to queue or travel to reach them.

Road closures compound the disruption. With part of the A23 shut at peak Sunday morning travel time, drivers heading toward or away from Gatwick Airport face diversions and delays, and local bus routes serving Southgate and the town centre are likely to be altered. Sussex Police's request that people avoid the area is also intended to keep pedestrians away from flooded roads and the underpass, where fast-moving, slippery water poses a genuine danger.

Southern Water said its teams were working "as quickly and safely as possible" to restore supplies, but did not give a firm timetable for when full pressure would return. Typically, repairs of this scale must be carried out under controlled conditions, and flushing the network can itself take time, so partial returns are common before the system is fully back to normal.

Residents were advised to check the Southern Water website for updates on supply arrangements and bottled water locations, and Sussex Police urged anyone in the affected area to avoid travelling through the closures. Local authorities and emergency services continued to monitor the site through the morning, with the investigation focused on establishing how the main failed and whether the flooding created any wider risks to nearby structures or utilities.

The event, coming less than a year after related disruption in the region, is likely to prompt renewed questions for Southern Water about network maintenance, the resilience of its mains and the support offered to customers whose supply is cut off without warning. For now, the priority remains straightforward: stop the water, clear the roads and get taps running again for the roughly 9,000 homes and businesses caught in the middle.