Leafy village devastated by Asda petrol leak: How Britain is at the mercy of incompetent corporations

The first thing you notice is not the smell but the sign: “Bramley Open for Business” alerting drivers on the busy trunk road that they are approaching the picturesque town nestled in Surrey’s stock market belt.

That optimistic poster gives no clue as to how the lives of the villagers have been ruined by a devastating fuel leak at the local gas station.

The misery inflicted on Bramley, where the air is often thick with petrol fumes, serves as a parable for modern Britain.

It is a sadly all-too-familiar story of ignored warnings, bureaucratic evasions and delayed compensation.

Residents in the UK are suffering the consequences of three of the country’s biggest companies failing to address the problem of the spill. One of them, the supermarket Asda, is in crisis after falling into the hands of a private equity fund.

Another company, Thames Water, is on the brink of collapse after being bilked out of billions of dollars in dividends by foreign owners.

A third company, BT-owned Openreach, has drawn the ire of residents as hundreds have been left without broadband and phone lines.

On the door of an abandoned greengrocer’s shop is a letter from the former owner, Phil Cowey. He recently closed the business and emigrated to New Zealand with his wife Abby and their children, Milo, 7, and Eliza, 4.

His business, Bramley’s Apples, had been in trouble for some time, but the final straw was the endless disruption and traffic jams that have wreaked havoc on Bramley since the leak was confirmed.

“Every day that there is roadworks costs me quite a bit of money in terms of lost business,” Cowey said in his letter.

No longer able to afford to hire staff, he increased his hours to 80 a week, but to no avail. So in July, Cowey resigned with a heavy heart and took his family halfway around the world to start a new life.

The Coweys are among the biggest victims of a leak that left more than 600 homes without running water for five weeks this summer after Thames Water issued a “do not drink” notice because supplies were contaminated with petrol.

This meant they could not use tap water for drinking, cooking or brushing their teeth, but they could use it for showering, bathing and washing their hands.

Schools were also affected, including fee-paying St Catherine’s School, whose patron saint is Queen Camilla, and where water restrictions were only lifted days before the new school term began this month.

The Asda petrol station recently reopened after being closed since February when it was identified as the source of a long-standing leak that caused thousands of litres of petrol to leak from a fractured pipe into the surrounding ground.

Residents had complained for years of toxic fumes and bad smells in the streets around the esplanade and at the nearby Jolly Farmer pub, but no action was taken.

“We were given the runaround,” says local councillor Jane Austin.

Heavy rains caused the fuel to spread into the water system, telephone and broadband lines and the local stream, where villagers found dead fish floating on an oily surface.

“We had to wear masks and open all the windows and doors,” recalls Chris Hardstone, owner of the Jolly Farmer. “It got to the point where we had to close all the accommodation.”

Even after partially reopening, Hardstone says the stench was so strong that contractors hired to clean it had to move out of their rooms, costing him £10,000.

“It’s been a nightmare for everyone,” adds Austin, who is also an agent for local MP and former chancellor Jeremy Hunt.

The leak was plugged in February, but experts say there may still be 2,000 litres of petrol in the ground and it could take another year or more to clean up the mess.

Villagers say insult has been added to injury by the lack of a coordinated response and paltry offers of compensation.

“The big frustration we have now is that we are not being given any details about how much oil is underground, how much has leaked from the site and where it has gone,” said Helen Melia, from the Bramley Residents Action Group. “We need a coordinated plan for how Bramley is going to be cleaned up.”

“Everyone is hiding behind the scenes,” Austin adds. “No one puts anything in writing because they’re afraid of being sued. It’s a lack of people taking responsibility for their own work.”

The petrol station is one of 132 that Asda bought from Co-op in 2022 for £600m. But experts say the cause of the leak dates back to 2016, when the station was run by an independent operator.

Asda accepts that as the current owner it is responsible for compensating local households and businesses affected by the leak. It has set up a business support scheme which promises unlimited payments if claims assessed by the loss-claims firm Sedgwick are successful. However, no payment has yet been made.

The supermarket chain, owned by private equity firm TDR Capital and until this week run by petrol station magnate Mohsin Issa, has also pledged a £50,000 fund for community projects and local organisations.

Asda has hired environmental consultancy EPS to monitor the area and lead the clean-up operation. But the initial offer of a £25 voucher for villagers (to be used at their local petrol station) was dismissed as “laughable” by Melia, of the Bramley Resident Action Group.

Asda chairman Stuart Rose, who was revealed yesterday to be replacing Mohsin Issa, told a meeting of residents in the village that “there will be no easy solution”.

Thames Water has also been criticised for only paying customers £30 after issuing the “do not drink” notice. Melia says the company was “clearly aware” in October 2023 that Bramley’s main water pipes had been contaminated but did not act quickly enough.

In response, Thames Water said that under its customer service guarantee, no additional compensation was due as the cut-off to the 621 properties was planned and water was still being supplied. Meliá described that response as “surprising”.

New barrier pipes have been laid at Bramley and Thames Water has carried out “an extensive sampling programme”, a spokeswoman added.

The anger of local residents has recently shifted to Openreach, Bramley’s broadband infrastructure provider, owned by BT.

Hundreds of people remain without internet and phone lines months after fuel leaked into Openreach’s pipes and cables. Openreach says it continues to see “significant spikes” in vapour levels and that it could take “at least 12 months” before its underground network is “fully safe”. A spokesperson added: “This is a complex and unprecedented incident.”

But Melia, who still makes tea with bottled water, warns: “What happened in Bramley could happen anywhere in the country where there is a petrol station.”

Now it’s Rose’s turn to clean up the mess, as if she didn’t have enough on her plate already.