Improvement works will continue - Thames Water

Thames Water's new CEO said it had heard "how angry" residents were about its response to a major incident

Thames Water's CEO has said he is "absolutely confident" that work to upgrade water supplies in Surrey will continue.

The parent company of Britain's biggest water company has been rendered effectively insolvent after defaulting on huge debts.

But Chris Weston told BBC Surrey that Kemble Water was a "separate entity", and Thames Water was ringfenced as an operating company and therefore "isolated from any problems".

It comes after Thames Water announced £30 goodwill payments to about 26,000 customers in the county following a major outage last year.

Surrey County Council declared a major incident in November when thousands of homes in the Godalming and Guildford areas were left without water for several days following Storm Ciarán.

At a public meeting on Friday, Mr Weston apologised for the disruption.

The company had previously announced an investment of £93.1m into its sites and infrastructure which it said would "ensure a safe and secure water supply" for Surrey residents.

Mr Weston told the BBC that an improvement programme, including building a water pipeline which would transfer water from a reservoir in West Guildford to a treatment site in East Guildford, was "well underway".

"We are then also discussing with Ofwat about what we can spend between 2025 and 2030 which is another £60m which we need Ofwat to agree to," he said.

"I'm absolutely confident that we will continue to deliver water and that we'll continue to treat people's sewage and the investment that we've discussed will happen."

The firm has paid out £1.7m in compensation to those who were affected by last year's outage but has faced criticism over its handling of claims.

Mr Weston said Thames Water would "do our best" to meet an end of May deadline for resolving compensation issues.

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