IT is disgraceful that businesses hit by Thames Water’s latest calamity are not to be compensated.

Disgraceful but hardly unexpected.

After all, the company’s attitude to those it’s supposed to serve has been highly unsatisfactory for as long as anybody can remember.

Thanks to a burst pipe, the 15m-litre Flaxlands Reservoir was drained as effectively as a bathtub with a hole punched into it..

Compared to the vast quantity of water spewed by leaking pipes across Thames Water’s Empire, 15m litres is modest, but the consequences were very severe.

The result for many householders was a loss of supply which left them relying on emergency bottle drops arranged by Thames Water.

These drops were trumpeted by the company as if it were doing the customers affected a big favour, which is bizarre in view of the fact that the drops wouldn’t have been necessary if the firm’s infrastructure hadn’t failed yet again.

For businesses caught up in the cut-off, however, the consequences extended beyond inconvenience.

Some were forced to close and undoubtedly lost money. Unlike Thames Water, they are not huge companies run by directors on six-figure salaries. Also unlike Thames Water, they are answerable to their customers and cannot rely on monopoly status to claw back extra cash.

Thames Water has blithely announced that compensation will not be paid to customers who were without water for less than 48 hours.

If there were ever a utility company with impeccable candidacy for having its franchise withdrawn or even being re-nationalised, Thames Water is it.