A school has been forced to close on the first day of term due to ongoing water supply issues.

Mayplace Primary school in Bexleyheath had expected to welcome back pupils today following the Summer holidays but instead learning will be held online.

It comes after water supply issues were detected at the building in Woodside Road near Crayford on Friday, which remain unresolved. Thames Water engineers are on-site today working to fix the problem.

In a letter sent to parents late last night and seen by KentOnline, head teacher Rachael Flaherty said: "I am very sorry indeed for the short notice but our site team have just discovered that we do not have a water supply in school.

"We had issues on Friday which seemed to be resolved but unfortunately this is not the case.

"I absolutely understand that this will be hugely inconvenient for working parents but unfortunately we don't have a choice.

"I know that the children will be disappointed too and for that I am sorry."

"I absolutely understand that this will be hugely inconvenient for working parents but unfortunately we don't have a choice."

But disgruntled parents who were asked to share the message on Whatsapp groups last night said they had reported "water gushing down the school's driveway" more than two weeks ago.

One mum, whose child attends the school, said: "The general feeling from parents is that whilst we appreciate it is not the school's fault that there are water issues it is frustrating that we weren't alerted to these early so we could have had plan B's in action.

"Also very frustrated at Thames Water who should have had this under control before now.

"The local residents have water as does the school next door. Who's paying us for the money we lose at work, spend on childcare or on activities?"

A Thames Water spokesperson said: “We’d like to apologise to Mayplace Primary School and nearby customers affected by the water outage around Woodside Road, Bexleyheath.

"We are treating this job as high priority and our engineers have been on site since the early hours of this morning working on the necessary repairs.

"We’ve also sent out tankers to ensure we can reinstate water supply to the school and customers affected.

"We aim to complete the repairs quickly and would like to thank local residents for their patience at this time.”

Mayplace is part of the Primary First Trust, a growing network of 10 individual primaries across Bexley, Gravesham and Medway.

A spokesperson for the school, said: "As a school, we take the health, safety and wellbeing of our pupils and staff incredibly seriously.

"Unfortunately, due to an external issue with our water supply, we have taken the decision to close the school today as we cannot open safely without running water.

"We have been assured by Thames Water that they are putting a solution into place which will allow us to reopen tomorrow morning as normal.

“In the meantime, our pupils are engaged in remote learning and we look forward to welcoming them all back into school tomorrow."