THAMES Water today apologised for a cut in water supply that caused two schools to close early.

Covingham Park Infants' and Junior Schools sent pupils home on health and safety grounds yesterday, because neither school had a water supply when school started.

Thames Water confirmed there was a problem affecting the whole area of Covingham, but at the time was unable to say what the problem was or when the water supply would be switched back on.

The water supply returned to the schools by 10am yesterday, but Covingham Park Junior head teacher Colin Green explained it was not possible to close the school and then immediately open it back up again.

He said: "When I arrived at the school, I was contacted by Covingham Infants' and told there was no water.

"The infants' school, which starts at 9am, had about five minutes to make a decision, and decided to close so that parents arriving for the start of school would not have to be called back.

"Parents with children at the junior school also took their children home, and we made arrangements to contact children's parents.

"We had to make a very quick decision about whether to stay open and with 240 children unable to use the toilets we had no choice."

Thames Water explained the cut was due to a tem-porary loss of pressure caused by routine work cleaning the mains.

Spokesman Chris Shipway said: "We received 80 calls from people in the Covingham area affected by the work. The works in that area are different to what we normally use.

"We were able to restore most people's supply within 45 minutes.

"We would like to say sorry to the schools for the inconvenience caused to them."