Thames Water offers £30 apology payment after storm

Some 14,520 properties had no water for 12 hours or more

Thames Water has offered a £30 goodwill payment to about 26,000 customers in Surrey after a major outage last year.

A major incident was declared in November after thousands of homes in the Godalming and Guildford areas were left without water for several days following Storm Ciarán.

The firm's chief executive, Chris Weston, has apologised for the disruption and announced a £93m investment across the affected areas to upgrade its infrastructure.

Jeremy Hunt is also hosting a public meeting with Thames Water to hear about improvements the company is making.

Thames Water said the supply issues were due to problems at its Shalford treatment plant caused by Storm Ciaran.

It used up to 16 tankers to pump water to hospitals and delivered 750,000 litres of bottled water to “priority” customers during the outage.

Since then, the firm has paid out £1.7m in compensation to those who were affected.

The £30 payment is just more than the equivalent of one month’s average water bill in this area.

People queued in several car parks to collect bottles of water

Mr Hunt, the MP for South West Surrey, said the outage caused “a great amount of distress for local people”.

“Although this goodwill gesture and apology shows progress, I’m sure I speak for many of my constituents when I say we hope to see Thames Water improve its performance,” he said.

The chancellor is set to question Mr Weston about the company's communication, compensation and infrastructure at the meeting in Godalming on Friday.

He is also set to ask how Thames Water has bettered its communications to its customers, and will question the amount of compensation it paid out, after people said they were unhappy with what they received.

Guildford MP Angela Richardson added: “While I’m sure the goodwill payment will be welcomed by people across Guildford, what we need to see now is Thames Water improving the service it provides to its customers locally, and indeed across the region.”

'Never about money'

The pair will also be joined by the chairman of the Consumer Council for Water (CCW) and the chairman of water regulator Ofwat.

Mr Weston said: “It’s our job to deliver a secure supply of high-quality drinking water and in this instance, we let people down.

“I believe that our gesture of goodwill is a step in the right direction as we work to improve our performance and provide a more resilient service for our customers and the communities we serve.”

Mike Keil, CCW chief executive, said: “For many customers this was never about money. It was about the company’s inconsistent approach and steadfast refusal to take seriously the disruption people had experienced.

“These goodwill payments are a welcome step, but it should not detract from the fact that it has taken far too long for Thames Water to resolve this matter and its communication with those affected has been poor.”