COUNCIL chiefs have apologised to residents over its handling of an incident which saw tap water turn brown and start smelling like petrol.

Tenants in Morgan House on the Lillington and Longmoore Gardens Estate, Pimlico, were left with the brown, smelly water in April 2025.

Some have said they are too scared to use the water today because they feel the city council did not carry out sufficient testing of their building’s various water supplies.

Council officers have this week promised to write a formal letter of apology to all residents and agreed to test all relevant water supplies to ensure the water was safe to drink following a ruling by the Housing Ombudsman.

Ernest Stafford, who lives on the estate, said: “No resident should ever smell a petrol-type substance in their tap water. Industry guidance says any hydrocarbon odour should trigger an immediate investigation.

“Instead, residents spent a year doing the work themselves. We had to become Erin Brockovich while being blocked and brushed aside”.

Housing wasn’t equipped to deal with such an incident: a councillor responsible lacked experience and officers didn’t follow guidance or due diligence, he said, adding: “Westminster still has no policy to prevent resident gaslighting, despite regulators and the ombudsman saying councils should have one. We just now need Westminster Council to identify the cause of this contamination and establish how safe our water is going forward.”

In June and July 2025 the city council tested all three water supplies for hydrocarbons which came back as normal.

Residents were told that the discolouration had been caused by disrupted iron sediment in the tank.

Councillor Ed Pitt Ford, who represents Pimlico North, said: “I am incredibly grateful that the new administration is treating this incident with the severity that it deserves.”