Speaking to the Henley Standard, Chris Dale, 66, from Hobbs End, Henley, said the leak, originating from a Thames Water meter, has been causing issues for residents since the beginning of June.

The water flows downhill in the cul-de-sac, reaching the junction with Valley Road.

Mr Dale said: “I have lived here and around all my life. I love Henley and I want it to look nice and at its best. This leak isn’t helping.

“When you leave water like this for so long, it looks terrible. It makes such a mess.

“Thames Water is aware of the leak—they’ve marked the drain, and nothing’s happened yet.”

Mr Dale was informed that the leak would be repaired on Thursday last week, but said there was “no sign of anyone.”

MP for Henley, Freddie Van Mierlo, recently hit out at the CEO of Thames for saying its leakage targets are unrealistic (Image: Contributed)

He said: “It’s not a good scenario, especially with all this hot weather at the moment and how long the leak has gone on for. Surely, we should be preserving water and not wasting it?”

“If you were to measure the amount of water each day for every day it’s been going on for, how many gallons would that be? It would be a lot.”

With a hosepipe ban being imposed by Thames Water last month, Mr Dale said he is “surprised” the leak has not been repaired yet.

He added: “Every time I look on the television, they’re saying to be careful with water, be careful how many times you shower and have a bath, which is fine. But then you have this amount of wastage on top of that, no wonder we’re in trouble.”

A spokesman for Thames Water said that it was planning the repair.

He said: “Leaks like this often require working with the local authorities, and in these cases, planning repairs can take a little longer.

“Once we’ve scheduled the repair, we’ll send a team to fix the leak.”

This “share” would give the government veto powers over decisions such as mergers.

The lenders are also proposing giving local authorities greater involvement in the firm.

CEO of Thames Water, Chris Weston, speaking on the BBC’s Big Boss Interview podcast, stated that some of the targets were beyond what they could achieve.

He said: “We have to hit a certain level of leakage, but it is so far in excess of what we are capable of doing, I think anyone would be capable of doing, however much money you invested, that it is not going to be achievable.”

Thames Water, the largest water company in the UK, has been under fire recently for its handling of sewage discharges and leaks.

Last year, it was fined a record £122.7 million by regulator Ofwat, largely for breaching sewage spill rules.

Ordnance Survey has reported record annual revenue of GBP £198.7 million, marking its 10th consecutive year of growth.

Revenue rose by GBP £4.1 million from the previous financial year, driven by the expansion of the National Underground Asset Register, growth in the OS Maps consumer app, and stronger demand from utilities, land and property customers.

A separate economic assessment cited by the organisation estimated that its work would generate GBP £10.6 billion in economic impact for the UK over the 10 years from the 2020-21 financial year to the 2029-30 financial year. Central to that calculation is the Public Sector Geospatial Agreement, a GBP £1 billion arrangement with government that gives public sector bodies access to Ordnance Survey data.

The figures show how far Ordnance Survey has moved beyond its historic identity as a producer of paper maps. It now maintains the National Geographic Database, a digital map of Britain containing 600 million location features and updated 30,000 times a day.

Use of that database grew by more than 30% over the year, while more than one million edits were made during the period. Since its launch four years ago, 16 data collections have been added and 70 major enhancements delivered.

Underground assets

A major part of the latest year’s growth came from the National Underground Asset Register, which Ordnance Survey operates for the government. The platform combines records of buried pipes and cables that were previously held by hundreds of separate asset owners.

With Openreach joining the system, the register now covers more than 3.2 million kilometres of pipes and cables, representing more than 80% of known underground infrastructure in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The service has also widened its user base. More than 10,000 people now use the platform, transaction volumes rose 115% during the year, and more than 70% of local authorities and 90% of highway authorities have signed up to share details of their assets.

The wider aim is to reduce accidental strikes during excavation work, which can interrupt water and power supplies, delay projects and create safety risks. By bringing the data into a single view, contractors can check what lies beneath a site before work starts.

Climate analysis

Ordnance Survey has also been using its data in climate and infrastructure analysis. Work combining its mapping data with Environment Agency flood data found that 12% of England’s roads and 20% of its rail lines could be exposed to climate-related flooding events.

Separate analysis identified 1.8 million homes at heightened wildfire risk on the edges of towns and cities. The organisation also said its subsidence modelling is being used to show where insurance claims are likely to be concentrated through to 2070.

In transport and energy planning, Ordnance Survey built a machine learning model with Transport for the North to identify which of the region’s 6.4 million households have driveways or off-street parking. Local authorities can use that information to target public electric vehicle chargepoint locations.

It is also working with the Met Office to identify where solar potential is being missed. These projects reflect a broader shift in how Ordnance Survey is positioning its data: from a reference tool to a source of analysis used in planning, resilience and investment decisions.

AI shift

Artificial intelligence has been part of Ordnance Survey workflows for more than a decade, used to extract features from aerial and street-level imagery for map updates. The next step, according to the organisation, is agentic AI systems that would allow users to query geospatial information through natural language.

That would let users interrogate location data for decisions such as where to place housing, mobile phone masts or other infrastructure. The plan points to a wider effort to make Ordnance Survey’s data easier to use across government and business.

Demand also increased across its commercial customer base over the year. Customer numbers rose by about 9% in utilities and 17% in land and property, according to the results.

On the consumer side, subscriptions to the OS Maps app increased 6% to 536,000, the highest total so far. Ordnance Survey also bought the remaining shareholding in Dennis Maps, reinforcing its position in the market for paper maps as well as digital services.

Nick Bolton, Chief Executive Officer of Ordnance Survey, said: “This year marked the 225th anniversary of our first map, and today, OS continues to innovate to meet the evolving needs of the nation. Our role is not just to provide data, but to ensure that it is continuously improving and delivering valuable insights: from mapping the pipes and cables beneath our streets to the flood and wildfire risks facing the communities above them. This work is helping both public and private sectors make better decisions about where to build, what to protect and how to unlock economic growth, as well as social and environmental opportunities.”

He added that the organisation had completed a six-year programme to build its data foundation and was now focused on broader access. “This demand for trusted location data has delivered another year of growth, and with a six-year programme to build our data foundation now complete, our focus is now on making data more accessible to more people and organisations. Doing so will deepen our role as a strategic partner to government while creating greater value for customers across the private sector and strengthen our role as Britain’s national mapping service,” Bolton said.

The UK has brought new solar storm forecasting tools into operational use to help protect flights, GPS navigation and the electricity grid. The systems were developed through the £20 million SWIMMR research programme.

The tools are already being used in live forecasting systems, marking a shift from academic research to day-to-day operational monitoring of space weather threats. An independent evaluation by Frazer-Nash Consultancy found the programme met its main goals of improving forecast accuracy, widening access to data and speeding the transfer of research into service.

Space weather is caused by eruptions from the Sun, including coronal mass ejections, which can disrupt satellites, communications, navigation systems and electricity networks on Earth. In the UK’s National Risk Register, severe space weather is classed as a top-tier national risk. A National Audit Office estimate put the potential economic impact of a major event at £9 billion.

The SWIMMR programme was led by the Science and Technology Facilities Council and the Natural Environment Research Council, in partnership with the Met Office, the British Geological Survey, the British Antarctic Survey and RAL Space. It ran for five years and brought together universities, national laboratories and industry partners in the UK and overseas.

One of the clearest tests came during the geomagnetic storm that swept across Earth in May 2024 and produced widespread auroral displays over the UK. While the Northern Lights drew public attention, scientists at the British Geological Survey used a new forecasting system to identify electricity substations most exposed to geomagnetically induced currents.

The system gave grid operators earlier warning of possible electrical imbalances. Programme backers said it was the first time the UK had this level of operational foresight into how a severe solar storm might affect parts of the power network.

Quicker transfer

The evaluation found that five UK-developed forecasting models are now moving into operational use at the Met Office Space Weather Operations Centre. They cover radiation hazards, solar wind, ionospheric disruption and impacts on electricity networks.

A cloud-based platform developed through the programme has also cut the time needed to transfer research models into operational systems. According to the evaluation, that process has fallen from several years to about six months.

New measurement tools are supplying live data to the Met Office operation, with the aim of improving response times when threats emerge for satellites, communications systems, aviation and the power grid. Full integration into operational services is expected by the end of 2026.

Professor Ian McCrea, Resilient Society theme lead at RAL Space and head of the SWIMMR programme, described the programme’s effect on UK readiness.

“SWIMMR has delivered a major advance in the UK’s space-weather capability, turning cutting-edge research into improved operational forecasting tools to protect satellites, aviation and the electricity grid. It has strengthened the UK’s ability to understand and respond to severe solar activity in real time, placing the UK among the leading nations developing operational space-weather forecasting capability through close international collaboration,” McCrea said.

Operational models

Among the projects highlighted is a model for forecasting high-energy electron activity in radiation belts around Earth. Before this work, the UK did not have real-time forecasts for those regions, despite the risk they pose to satellites carrying navigation, weather and communications services.

The work was led by the British Antarctic Survey with Imperial College London, the universities of Reading, Northumbria and Sheffield, and the Met Office. The model is now in pre-operational use at the Met Office Space Weather Operations Centre.

Another strand focused on radiation exposure on polar air routes, where passengers and crew can face higher levels of radiation during solar storms. The University of Surrey developed and installed sensors on commercial aircraft and weather balloons, feeding real-time readings into the Met Office.

Using those measurements, Surrey developed MAIRE+, described as the UK’s first real-time model of aviation radiation exposure during normal conditions and solar storms. A related model, MAIRE-R, extends the work to very high altitudes, and both are now in pre-operational use.

Simon Machin, manager of the Met Office Space Weather Programme and meteorologist, said the collaboration had changed the speed at which forecasting tools could be adopted.

“SWIMMR has fundamentally changed the way we bring space-weather research into operational forecasting. By working directly with researchers throughout the programme, we have been able to move new models and data streams into live forecasting far more quickly than was previously possible. That means better situational awareness during severe space-weather events and earlier warning of potential impacts affecting satellites, communications, aviation and the electricity grid,” Machin said.

Industry testing

The programme also expanded testing of electronics exposed to radiation linked to solar storms. At the ChipIr facility within the ISIS Neutron and Muon Source, the NILE laboratory was added to let engineers assess how components perform under a broader range of radiation conditions.

Researchers said the work showed that solar-driven neutron events can trigger cascading failures in vulnerable components. The facility is described as the only one of its kind in Europe, and technology companies are using it to test network routers, data centre hardware and high-power semiconductors.

In total, SWIMMR included 11 connected projects and involved more than 70 organisations. The programme established 29 domestic and 33 international partnerships, while about 40 specialist roles were created or sustained over five years.

The independent evaluation also found the programme generated about 60 pence of additional investment for every £1 of public funding. “The priority now is ensuring these advances are embedded in operational services and continue to evolve through real-world use,” McCrea said.