A burst water main - ignored for three months while thousands of litres gushed out every week – was fixed within hours of it being exposed by the Wimbledon Guardian.

More than half a million litres of water were wasted by the leak to the pipe in Seddon Road, Morden, because Merton’s social housing provider was not told about it by the council or Thames Water.

Nearly 600,000 litres of clean water was lost at a time when half of England is officially in drought and Merton residents have been banned from using hosepipes since April 4.

While the urgency of England experiencing the worst drought in over a century was not enough to force the authorities to work together to get the leak fixed, Dave Charnley, the resident who reported the leak on January 7, said publicity was.

Mr Charnley, who said more than a dozen workmen were at the site on Friday and had taken a matter of hours to fix the leak, said: “I’m not exaggerating when I say I rang Merton Council and Thames Water between 50 and 60 times to try and get that leak fixed.

“But it didn’t make a difference. The council said it wasn’t its responsibility and Thames Water said it didn’t have permission.

“Anyone with common sense could see it was Merton Priory Homes was responsible because it’s next to one of its housing blocks.

“How many times do you have to complain to get something fixed? Next time I’ll just call the local paper straight away because nothing else seems to have worked.”

Despite Thames Water having sent a contractor to investigate the leak on March 25, it did nothing more than dig a hole, build a safety barrier around it, and write a note that said “Council to take over leak”.

But Merton Council said it did not own the land and initially refused to reveal that the landowner was MPH, the housing association which now owns and manages the council’s social housing stock.

A MPH spokeswoman confirmed on Friday that the leak was fixed and water turned back on at 3pm.

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