WATER firm bosses say engineers are working round the clock to repair a major leak which affected up to 30,000 homes.

Essex and Suffolk Water says teams are working as quickly as possible to repair the damage after the pipe exploded in Bournes Green Chase, Thorpe Bay at 7.30am on Monday.

The water authority spoke out after residents criticised the firm.

A spokesman said: “We’d like to thank our customers and the community.

“Due to the size of the pipe there was some flooding to the area but thanks to the help of the fire services and council we managed to clear all of the standing water away.

“We are now speaking with anyone who was affected by the flooding and offering any help and support we can.

“Our teams are continuing to work at Bournes Green roundabout to repair the pipe and the damaged road surface.

“While we do this, a temporary lane closure is in place around the roundabout for safety reasons.

“We are working as safely and speedily as we can on this repair and expect this work to be complete by Friday and we wholeheartedly apologise for the disruption that this has caused the local community and our customers in the area.

“We would like to thank everyone for their patience while we work to get the area back to normal.

“We’d also like to thank our teams on the ground for all of their hard work ensuring that customers’ water supply was quickly restored after such a large burst.”

But residents have voiced their concerns.

Sarah Vulner, 54, of Thorpe Bay, said: “We need to understand how it happened.

“We cannot have it going wrong again, we need to see full investigations into the burst main.

“It isn’t good that one main pipe can burst and we’ve got all this chaos and issues.

“I hope it doesn’t happen again especially with the awful cold weather predicted.

“Schools were so badly impacted and that’s just not acceptable, almost all the schools were closed.”

Thorpe Hall Avenue will have a lane closure in place for up to four days.

Separately, an elderly woman was rescued after she became trapped in her home by the waters. Crews rushed to the bungalow in Thorpe Hall Avenue, Thorpe Bay.