WOES underground are being felt more and more overground.

It appears the sewer pipes below us are creaking like the joints of an octogenarian and cannot cope with 21st century living.

The city has seen a catalogue of collapsed and broken sewers.

Each has required emergency work, often leading to traffic chaos, such as at Osney Bridge last month and now Queen Street, where bus drivers are looking at a further week of disruption.

With each problem, Thames Water has trotted out the usual line of it being a ‘must-do’ job and apologies for disruption caused.

But what everyone wants to know is why it cannot prevent the next collapsed sewer?

Their actions seem to be primarily reactive, only jumping into gear when the threat of raw sewage flowing along the streets of the city is at its greatest.

With so much talk of more housing being needed, the fear is that if the sewers are struggling now, how will they deal with all the extra people these proposed developments will bring?

The company needs to reassure customers that Oxford is still in their thoughts against the behemoth of London – which, given the number of customers in the capital, would be all too easy to concentrate the majority of resources on.

With water bills rising in households still struggling with the cost of living, Thames Water needs to show it is on top of the problem.

And should the network beneath our feet be unfit for purpose – and let us recognise that swathes of the tunnels date back to the Victorian era – the company needs to be honest and either fix it, or explain its limitations.