Contacts if your home or business is flooded

Current weather warnings

Visit the Met Office website for further information and updates on weather warnings.

Visit the TfL website to plan your journey in advance.

Find out how to prepare for a flood.

Follow us on Twitter for the latest updates from around Westminster.

Sign up for flood warnings on GOV.UK.

Find advice and support during and after a storm.

Flooding contacts

Emergencies

During a flooding event, if you are vulnerable or feel that lives are at risk, contact the emergency services on 999 for immediate assistance and rescue.

Non-emergencies

If the issue is urgent but not life-threatening:

• Westminster City Council: 020 7641 6000 (24-hour service).
• Thames Water: 0800 316 9800.
• Environment Agency: 0800 80 70 60 (24-hour service).

If you are not sure who to contact, please see advice below.

Getting support

Whether you are a resident of or own a business in Westminster, you can call the council’s contact centre on 020 7641 6000 and state that you are affected by the flooding. Our staff will then be able to help you access the support you may need. Council teams can also advise on how to access insurance claims and can help follow up with housing associations.

If you have problems with your water supply, contact Thames Water on 0800 316 9800.

Housing tenants and leaseholders

If you are a Westminster housing tenant or leaseholder and have an emergency issue with your property, please call 0800 358 3783. If you are calling out of hours, please press 1 when instructed to be directed to a member of the team.

Contacting your housing provider

All residents should make contact directly with their own housing provider first if they are experiencing difficulties with their accommodation. Please see contact details below for the main housing association landlords operating in Westminster.

Document

Housing Association contact information PDF, 129.54 KB, 2 pages

For businesses

If you operate a food premises and it has been flooded, you can contact our Food Safety Team at [email protected] or call us on 020 7641 1092. Follow the Food Standards Agency's advice on food safety after a flood.

Who to contact based on different types of flooding

Surface water

• Surface water or flash flooding occurs when heavy rainfall exceeds the capacity of the ground and local drainage networks to absorb it.
• Where there is flooding on the road/pavement and coming from blocked public gullies and drains, you can report this to Westminster Council on 020 7641 2000.
• Where significant flooding has resulted in a property flooding, please also report it to the Council’s Lead Local Flood Authority team after the event: [email protected].

Sewers

• Sewers are the responsibility of Thames Water. If you think there is a blockage in the sewer, report it here.
• If the flooding is coming from inside your property (i.e. out of your sinks, toilets, or showers), call Thames Water on 0800 316 9800 or report it here.
• Sewer flooding can often be seen as surface water flooding and so it may not be clear where it originates from and so should also be reported to Westminster City Council after the event: [email protected].

Water supply pipes

• Thames Water provides a website for reporting damaged pipes here.
• Thames Water also provides the following advice on frozen or burst pipes.

Rivers

• To report flooding from the River Thames, contact the Environment Agency’s service Floodline (24-hour): 0345 988 1188 or text 0345 602 6340. 

Groundwater

• Groundwater flooding occurs because of the underground water table rising, which can result in water emerging through the ground and causing flooding in extreme circumstances.
• Please call Westminster City Council on 020 7641 6000 and report it to the Council’s Lead Local Flood Authority team after the event: [email protected].

Canals

• The Canal and River Trust is responsible for canals.
• For emergencies, call them on 0800 47 999 47 (24-hour service). For non-emergency related matters, call them on 0303 040 4040.

After a flood

Insurance

If you have insurance in place, you should contact your insurance provider as soon as possible to report any damage. Before throwing anything away, speak to your insurance company, and make sure you take photographs of any damage in line with your insurance company’s policies.

Disposing of waste

If you have furniture or other items affected by a flood that you wish to dispose of, our waste teams will come round to pick these up. Please make sure you identify anything that is not for waste collection so that these don’t get collected by mistake.

We are unable to clear floorboards, plasterboard, rubble sacks and similar ‘builders waste’ as these require separate disposal from ‘household waste’ items.

Safety advice for businesses

You will need to do an initial clean and follow this by disinfecting all surfaces that were contaminated by floodwater. You can clean contaminated surfaces with a brush, hot water and household cleaning fluid. Don’t forget to clean enclosed spaces under kitchen units or floorboards. If floodwater was contaminated with oil or diesel, you’ll need to use a detergent such as washing-up liquid. Once you have finished cleaning, use disinfectant on everything that was in contact with floodwater. You will need to wash contaminated clothing and bedding at a high temperature.

For food-related businesses, there is important advice on the FSA website regarding dealing with food safety following a flood.

Electrical and gas safety is vitally important following flooding.

Before you start clearing up:

• check that the electricity supply is switched off at the mains.
• if you aren’t sure the electricity is turned off, get a qualified person to do this.
• don’t touch sources of electricity while standing in floodwater get any electrical appliances that have come into contact with floodwater checked by a qualified electrician before using them again. if you use gas heating or gas appliances in your home, you'll need to get a Gas Safe-registered engineer to do an inspection after a flood.

The Electrical Safety First website offers more advice for dealing with the after effects of flooding.