Church Road Flooding Incident
Case reference EIR2026/00397
Received 6 April 2026
Published 23 April 2026
Request
390 Church Road, Merton Abbey London SW19 2QF
I request the records for an emergency attendance by the LFB on 02 August 2018 at approximately 08:25: Please provide the following information:
1. The Incident Log / Detailed Incident Report (DIR): Including the "Incident Category" assigned to this call-out.
2. Environmental Observations: Any recorded notes regarding the nature of the floodwater, specifically any mention of odour, sewage contamination, or biohazard risks identified on-site.
3. Reason for Withdrawal: The specific recorded reason why the crew ceased operations or withdrew from the site (e.g., "Health & Safety risk").
4. Agency Liaison: Any record of communication between the LFB and Thames Water or Merton Council regarding the status of this specific infrastructure failure.
Response
Please see a response to each of your requests in turn below:
1. The Incident Log / Detailed Incident Report (DIR): Including the "Incident Category" assigned to this call-out.
This part of your request has been passed to the LFB Incident Reports team to take forward in line with LFB policy 0874. Further details are published on our website here, including how to contact the team directly:
https://www.london-fire.gov.uk/about-us/services-and-facilities/services-we-offer/incident-reports/
The Incident Reports team experiencing a higher-than-normal level of requests at the moment but will in touch with you as soon as they are able.
2. Environmental Observations: Any recorded notes regarding the nature of the floodwater, specifically any mention of odour, sewage contamination, or biohazard risks identified on-site.
We do not hold this information. I have reviewed the information on LFB’s Information Management System (IMS) for this special service (non-fire) incident (LFB reference number: 109642-02082018) and this information is not recorded.
As special service (non-fire) incidents do not typically require cause analysis or full investigative activity by LFB, the level of information recorded is limited and is less detailed than the information recorded for fire incidents.
3. Reason for Withdrawal: The specific recorded reason why the crew ceased operations or withdrew from the site (e.g., "Health & Safety risk").
We do not hold this information. I have reviewed the information on LFB’s Information Management System (IMS) for this incident (LFB reference number: 109642-02082018) and this information is not recorded.
Special Service reports usually contain only high‑level information about our attendance, the nature of the incident and the actions taken. They rarely include detailed analysis, cause information or wider contextual material.
4. Agency Liaison: Any record of communication between the LFB and Thames Water or Merton Council regarding the status of this specific infrastructure failure (suspected "cross-bore" infrastructure failure in a Source Protection Zone 1 (SPZ1)).
The level of information recorded for Special Service incidents is limited and we do not hold this information. I have performed an eDiscovery search of all LFB user accounts for any documents (including emails) that mention "Merton" or "Thames Water" as well as the words "Cross Bore" or "Cross-Bore" dated after 01 August 2018. None of the documents returned related to 390 Church Road, SW19.
Documents
This is London Fire Brigade's response to a freedom of information (FOI) or environmental information regulations (EIR) request.
You can browse our other responses or make a new FOI request.