Problems with Saur

[Uffcat]

Can anyone give me any advice on a problem we seem to be having with Saur please?

We have a water meter at the back of our property, which presumably routes in from a small lane there (in a reasonably remote little hamlet) and normally have no problems with water supply etc. About 6 weeks ago we received a visit from some Saur workmen who said they wanted to make a new supply for two new houses being built across the lane from us, at the front of the property.  They suggested could involve either digging all around out property from the meter to the end of the drive to reroute the supply (probably about 100 metres in total), or to move our water meter to the garage at the front of the property and tap into it from there with a much shorter trench to provide water and meters to the new houses.  They preferred to relocate the meter as it meant less work and said it would not involve us in any expense either way.  We agreed verbally to this.

Having heard nothing from them we wrote asking when they planned to do the work and pointed out that we did not particularly want to leave a key with neighbours and wanted to be there when the work was done.  They replied about 10 days ago that they had no immediate plans to do the work but that they would contact us when they did (they have both the French address and our UK address).  On that basis we decided to make a trip back to the UK and arrived here a week ago. 

We received a call from our neighbour tonight to tell us that there is now a five metre long and metre wide open trench dug alongside our drive, ie on our land, plus a further filled in trench at the back of the property, presumably from the water meter.  She assumes they have been there all this week although no workmen were present today. 

Can anyone tell us

1) whether Saur have any authority to do this without knowledge or any further agreement despite them assuring us they would contact us first and also that they had no immediate plans to do the work.

2) the position regarding our water supply as they have presumably now disconnected it but cannot reconnect without access to the garage. 

3) The position regarding any damage done. We are not looking forward to getting back and finding we have no water connected PLUS what sounds as if it will be a totally wrecked garden.

I will try calling them next week but with Easter about to begin we are obviously worried about this and would like some idea of how to proceed anyway.

 

Thanks