The dad of a nine-month-old baby who has been left with no running water blocked in a Thames Water van in a desperate attempt for help.
Chris Oxley, 40, and his 43-year-old partner Sarah McCrory claim to have been without water since 7pm on Monday due to a pipe leak on their road in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire.
On Wednesday morning, after more than 10 calls to Thames Water and failed attempts to find the source of the leak, tensions came to a peak.
Footage shows Chris parking two cars across the front and back of the water company's van, saying: "He's blocked at the moment, and the reason for that is we've had no water for 36 hours."
The clip, reported by the MailOnline, was shared to Twitter alongside the caption: "So far 1.3 million litres lost, no water in the homes on the road, kids, elderly and baby all left to it in the heat - total incompetence."
Thames Valley Police officers were called to reports of a public order offence, saying the matter was resolved peacefully.
Recalling the lead-up to the confrontation, Chris told the Mirror: "I was just knackered to be honest and worn down with it. I said 'if you call your manager I'll move the car'. I wasn't holding the car permanently.
"I was then trying to find my phone to film it before realising I was blocking the highway, so brought the car in. Police came out and I was a bit fearful at that point, thinking 'am I in trouble'.
"But my partner was in tears, I have a kid I need to wash and clean their bib up, so we have to force it. I pulled the car in so it was level in the road.
"One police officer was quite amenable, I explained I wanted to speak to the manager as the call centre just close the call and then we're stranded again. I mean how many days are we supposed to leave this for?"
He eventually moved the cars and his partner received a call back from a manager at the water company four hours later, allegedly saying they had "located the leak and the water would be back shortly".
Sixty-five hours after the problem was first detected, Chris says he still has no running water.
He added: "It's all up in the air at the moment. They're out there digging but we definitely don't have any water yet.
"I understand there's only so much they can do and you have to wait, but it's the phone calls saying it's been fixed or nearly done, while the engineers are saying that's rubbish and they haven't found the leak.
"They've dropped off six packs of water with six bottles but it takes three bottles to flush a toilet once. There's only so long you can cope, it's 35C outside and even warmer inside."
Chris said his wife has been making 40-mile round trips to shower at her parents, while they use three to four bottles of water alone to fill a sink bath for their baby.
He continued: "There's also nothing going down the sink to wash things through, so we're tipping baby milk down there and it's sitting there stinking to high heaven.
"We're trapped in this cycle of there being no management available and the engineers needing permission. The engineers have been stellar but the head office really suck with bureaucracy.
"Engineers said we're losing 10 litres a second through this leak as it's pressurised, yet at the same time they're trying to impose a hosepipe ban and we're getting texts reminding us to turn off our tap while cleaning our teeth. It's been crackers."
In a statement, Thames Valley Police said: "We were called to a report of a public order offence on (Wednesday) morning. We attended and spoke to a number of individuals to resolved the matter peacefully."
It comes as Thames Water is shown to be currently wasting around 24 per cent of its water every day - which accounts to more than 624million litres of water.
This means every four days an entire day's water usage is wasted.
In response to its water wastage, a company spokesperson said: “We know it’s not acceptable to be losing so much precious water but we’re doing something about it and our shareholders have recently approved an additional £2billion into the business so we can improve outcomes for customers, leakage and river health.
"It’s not going to be quick, but we’re making progress and we’ve met our target to reduce leakage for the last three years, reducing the amount of water lost by 10.2 per cent since 2019/20.
"Our aim is to reduce our leakage by 20.4 per cent between 2020 and 2025 and in 2021/22 we fixed over 60,000 leaks, that’s almost 1,200 on average every week.”
The Mirror has contacted Thames Water for further comment.
