Blocked drain - water company’s asset.

[kitchen1]

Two weeks ago we had a blocked drain. Our neighbour was affected as it is a shared drain. He helped clear it with a set of drain rods. The blockage itself was entirely under our property.
We have a 1960s chalet bungalow so drains are over 50 years old.

We had a CCTV drain survey to follow up.
The survey showed
“ a deformed pitch fibre drain that needs rounding. It is shared with the neighbour so it is classed as a Thames Water asset.

What does this mean in practice?
Should I pay now to get remedial work done to avoid a future complete collapse?
Would the water company send an emergency team out if we have another problem?
Is the company likely to deny responsibility?

we had a repeatedly blocked drain and ours is shared with several neighbours. It is therefore the water company’s responsibility. I did have to call many times but eventually they engaged and did fix it with no cost to us.

If you contact the water company they should fix it as it's a shared drain.

The water companies are responsible for shared drains now, they should come out without a problem.

It means that it isn't your problem to fix it. Even though the drain is on your land, it doesn't belong to you: it is part of the public sewer network. We had a similar issue. We didn't pay anyone to diagnose the issue, we just called Thames Water and they sent a contractor to find out what was wrong and fix the issue at no cost to us.

Thanks for your replies. Does that mean they will come and repair deformed pipe before it gets blocked again?

They should do the work, I'd contact them and explain what's happened and hopefully they'll come and sort it out to prevent future issues.