'No water for five days, I want compensation'

Nina says she has not been offered adequate compensation by Thames Water

Calls are being made by families in south east London for Thames Water to pay out full compensation after a broken mains pipe left them without water for several days.

Nina Segal from Forest Hill said: "We have a four-year-old, we have a one-year-old, we didn't receive any water from Thames Water. We didn't have any water coming through our taps."

She also said "dozens" in her neighbourhood had received less than what they were owed.

Thames Water has said it recognises the current scheme "does not always accurately reflect the experience customers have during a water supply interruption".

Forest Hill resident Cauvery said she was offered £30 in compensation

In February, BBC London reported that thousands of homes and businesses in south London had been left without water or had reduced supply after a pipe burst in the Crystal Palace area.

The areas affected included the SE19, SE20, SE26 and SE23 postcodes.

At the time, Thames Water apologised to customers and told them engineers were working to restore water and fix the pipe.

Customers are entitled to £30 compensation for every 12 hours they are without water.

Cauvery Shelat, who lives in a flat in Forest Hill, says Thames Water is continuing to fail customers by not providing adequate compensation.

She also had no water supply for five days.

She told BBC London: "We just received a letter to offer £30 compensation.

"According to their statistics - because they do measure water pressure in the area - and if it's over a certain bar then it's still feasible that in their eyes we had access to water."

Nina also said many of her neighbours had been underpaid.

"I know just from the local neighbourhood there's dozens of households who have been offered lower compensation than they should have," said Nina.

She's calling for the water company to "do the right thing" and pay full compensation.

She said she was paid £60 compensation but was still "£150 out".

"That's not a small amount of money," she added.

Thames Water has been criticised for the number of leaks across the network

In a statement Thames Water said: "We recognise the current customer guarantee scheme does not always accurately reflect the experience customers have during a water supply interruption and we are looking at what we can do to improve this."

In March the utilities company secured a £3bn rescue loan to avoid coming under government control.

Thames Water has huge debts and is struggling to fix leaks, sewage spills and modernise outdated infrastructure.

It serves about a quarter of the UK's population, mostly across London and parts of southern England and employs 8,000 people.