Payouts for thousands over water loss

Tankers dedicated to Southampton General Hospital were brought in to pump water in while the problem was fixed

Thousands of people who faced problems with their water supply in the lead up to Christmas are set to receive a payment from Southern Water.

The outage on 18 December affected 58,000 properties in parts of Southampton, Eastleigh, Romsey and the New Forest.

Southern Water said it was caused by a "technical issue" at its Testwood Water Supply Works. Supplies were restored on 20 December.

The water firm said people would receive different amounts of compensation depending on how long they were off for and the BBC has seen offers of £100 and £150 to two customers.

Bottled water was given to residents affected at emergency stations

A spokesperson at Southern Water said: "We will compensate our customers' accounts automatically by 21 January 2025.

"We are emailing and writing to our customers this week and next, confirming the amount each customer will receive."

Following the outage Lawrence Gosden, the water firm's boss announced plans to spend £9.7m in compensation to customers after the issues at the supply works in Totton.

In a statement he said it was "the single biggest water supply incident in our company's history."

Industry regulator Ofwat said the incident was being investigated by the Drinking Water Inspectorate.

While the problem was fixed bottled water stations were set up to hand out emergency supplies to residents.

People reported queuing for two hours and some priority customers said they did not receive enough water.

The disruption came as households served by Southern Water discovered their bills would rise by 53% over the next five years - the highest increase in the country.

That is higher than the average bill increase of 36% across England and Wales.

The average annual bill will rise from £420 to £642 in 2029.