This article by Kathrine Gray is on My London, and you can read it here.
'Westminster Council gaslit us when we complained our water turned brown and smelled of petrol'
The Central London council has apologised for how it handled the incident on a Pimlico estate and has promised a full investigation
Westminster City Council has apologised to Pimlico residents over their handling of an incident which saw their tap water turn brown and start smelling like petrol.
Tenants living in Morgan House on the Lillington and Longmoor Gardens Estate were left with the brown smelly water after an incident in April 2025. Since then, many residents say that they are still too scared to use the water because they felt that the council didn’t carry out sufficient testing of their building's various water supplies.
In June 2025, Morgan House residents told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) they had been experiencing foul water for at least two months and had noticed their skin become irritated and itchy.
At a meeting on Tuesday July 7, council officers promised to write a formal letter of apology to all residents. They also agreed to test all relevant water supplies so that residents could be sure the water was safe to drink.
Ernest Stafford, who lives on the estate, said: "No resident should ever smell a petrol‑type substance in their tap water. Industry guidance says any hydrocarbon odour should trigger an immediate investigation.
"Instead, residents spent a year doing the work themselves — we had to become Erin Brockovich while being blocked and brushed aside. The housing function wasn’t equipped to deal with such an incident: the councillor responsible lacked the experience, officers didn’t follow guidance or established due diligence, and Stuart Love, the CEO, didn’t intervene.
"This is from a council with a C1 rating — the highest grade — and the Social Housing Regulator may need to reflect on how that aligns with the gaps exposed here.
"Westminster still has no policy to prevent resident gaslighting, despite regulators and the Ombudsman saying councils should have one. We just now need Westminster council to identify the cause of this contamination and establish how safe our water is going forward."
The council repeatedly told residents that they believed that the issue was with the Thames Water supply. However, at the meeting Thames Water said that their tests of the incoming water showed no issues.
Residents also say that the water coming from their hot water taps was affected during the incident.
Westminster City Council says that statutory pH tests on the hot water supply in the plant room came back as normal. However, standard pH testing would not show the presence of hydrocarbons (or fuel) in the water.
In June and July 2025, the council tested all three water supplies for hydrocarbons which came back as normal.
They told residents that they believed that the discolouration had been caused by disrupted iron sediment in the tank.
Tenants say that the council tests on hot water are not reliable as they were taken from an empty flat where no one had been living.
The council has also promised to provide residents with documentation regarding a red diesel tank on the estate that had previously been requested.
Councillor Ed Pitt Ford, who represents Pimlico North, said: “I am incredibly grateful that the new administration is treating this incident with the severity that it deserves.
“Residents not only had to put up with contaminated water but they then had to deal with refusals to carry out the appropriate testing, a dismissive attitude from all levels to their valid concerns and a complete absence of leadership.
“It’s deeply upsetting to see the system that should protect people, close ranks and deny reality in an attempt to protect their reputation.
“I was relieved yesterday to see an end to that culture and for the residents to receive an apology for what they have been put through. We need to introduce a new culture of accepting and learning from mistakes.
“I look forward to now having a thorough investigation, championed by the new Conservative administration, into what happened, to ensure it does not happen again, along with thorough testing to confirm that the water is currently safe to use.”
As well as comprehensive testing of the building’s water supplies to reassure residents, Westminster City Council agreed to carry out an investigation into what caused the water’s stench and discolouration.
Council officers will also carry out recommendations by the Housing Ombudsman, which found ‘service failure’ in its handling of the brown water incident.
The council did not provide the LDRS with a comment on the outcome of the meeting. In April, it told the LDRS that Thames Water were responsible for supplying the building.
A Housing Ombudsman report found that the landlord did not log the brown water incident in line with its housing emergency protocol. It also found that it was delayed in reporting the event to the water company.
The Ombudsman also found that the council failed to set out its understanding of the complaint and the outcomes sought following the residents' escalation.
However, it found that the council "responded reasonably and inline with its housing emergency protocol throughout the day of the event and afterwards".
