Burst main floods Crawley roads and cuts water supply to around 9,000 homes

Thousands of households across Crawley, West Sussex, were left without a reliable water supply on Sunday morning after a large main pipe burst near the Southgate Roundabout, while flooding forced the closure of several roads including a stretch of the busy A23.

Emergency services said they were managing what Sussex Police described as a "significant" leak. Roads in the vicinity of the Southgate Roundabout were shut from early on Sunday, with officers asking the public to stay away while the situation was brought under control.

Southern Water, the regional supplier responsible for the network, said around 9,000 customers had been affected. The company said repair teams were already on site and that it was establishing bottled water stations to provide essential drinking water to residents who were unable to draw water from their taps or were experiencing weak pressure.

Customers were told they could be facing either a complete loss of supply or low water pressure in several parts of the town. The areas named by Southern Water were Woolborough Road, Holmcroft, Southgate, Tilgate and Furnace Green — a spread of residential neighbourhoods that covers a significant swathe of the town north of the town centre and close to the Crawley railway station and the A23 corridor.

A company 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 flooding has had a direct impact on the road network. According to Southern Water, Southgate Avenue, Crawley Avenue and part of the A23 were all closed as a result of the incident. The A23 is a major arterial route linking London and the south coast, and Crawley sits on the main transport corridor between Gatwick Airport, Brighton and the capital, meaning disruption on that stretch of road is likely to have affected commuter and airport traffic well beyond the town.

Local resident and delivery driver Martin Lawrence was in the area at about 05:00 BST, when the flooding was already at its most severe. He told BBC Radio Sussex: "I came across this massive flood going across the road. There was a large amount of water going from one side of the roundabout to the other and going into an underpass. I've never seen so much water in my life."

His account describes water moving across the carriageway and pouring into an underpass, consistent with reports of a major burst on a high-pressure main feeding a densely populated part of the town. When a large supply main fails at pressure, the volume of water released can be substantial, and where the damage is close to a roundabout or low-lying underpass the result is rapid, deep surface flooding that can isolate roads and prevent access for repair crews.

Southern Water is one of the largest water companies in southern England and operates extensive networks across Sussex and neighbouring counties. The utility has been the subject of sustained public and regulatory criticism over leak reduction, network maintenance and customer service, and incidents of this kind tend to draw fresh scrutiny of how quickly damaged infrastructure is located, isolated and repaired — particularly where thousands of properties are affected at once.

The disruption comes at a time when Crawley is still in the public eye following a previous major water incident. The BBC has previously reported on a significant water outage affecting Gatwick Airport, the major international hub that sits just to the south of the town. That episode saw flights disrupted and passengers moved to bottled water, and its aftermath included extended restoration work. The current incident is separate, but it falls within weeks of disruption that has highlighted the vulnerability of local water infrastructure serving both the town and its neighbouring airport.

For residents, the practical impact goes beyond inconvenience. A loss of water or pressure at home affects washing, cooking, toilet use and, in the case of households with babies, older people or medical equipment, can create immediate health and safeguarding concerns. The decision to set up bottled water stations suggests Southern Water anticipated a repair job measured in hours or longer rather than a brief interruption, and residents in the worst-affected postcodes would have been the priority.

Sussex Police's advice has been that people avoid the area entirely while emergency services manage the situation safely, which also means the closures are being treated as a genuine safety hazard rather than a routine traffic inconvenience. Diversions will be in place for Southgate Avenue, Crawley Avenue and the affected part of the A23, and drivers are likely to face delays well outside Crawley as traffic is redirected through the surrounding road network.

No completion time had been given at the point of publication. Southern Water said work was continuing, and the company will be expected to provide updates as crews isolate the damaged section, repair the pipe and restore pressure to the affected streets. Residents who remain without supply are likely to see further disruption to their water network when the mains are refilled, as airlocks and sediment are cleared from household pipework.

Ultimately, the incident is a reminder of how dependent a modern town is on a small number of large, high-pressure mains. A single failure can cut off supply to tens of thousands of people and, as this case shows, turn a local burst into a transport disruption affecting routes used by tens of thousands of motorists every day.