THAMES Water has faced scathing criticism in the wake of the “largest-ever” water outages in recent history.

Tens of thousands of homes across Guildford, Godalming and Haslemere were left parched after Storm Ciarán last November.

The utility giant’s infrastructure spending was slammed as “completely inadequate,” and communication labelled a “disgrace” in a recent meeting of a Guildford Borough Council scrutiny committee.

The outage led to chaos, as some 20,346 homes were cut off for more than three hours,  and 14,520 for 12 hours or more hours  – including hospitals and schools – with reports of staff and volunteers being verbally abused and spat at.

So far Thames Water has paid out £1.7 million pounds in compensation to those impacted. 

But councillors blasted its infrastructure spending as “woeful” and demanded action.