Parasite outbreak bill 'will not be footed by customers'

About 700 households in Higher Brixham, Southdown, Upton Manor and St Mary's areas are still being advised to boil their tap water before drinking it

The cost of tackling the cryptosporidium outbreak in Devon will not be "footed by customers", said South West Water (SWW).

Shareholders would be expected to fund the response to the incident in Brixham and the surrounding communities, according to the water company.

About 700 households were still being advised to boil their tap water before drinking it - at one stage around 16,000 households were affected.

In May SWW said the bill to compensate customers and businesses could be up to £3.5m.

David Harris, incident director at SWW, said shareholders would be expected to fund the cost of responding to the parasite outbreak

David Harris, incident director at SWW, said customers would "not see one penny of that going on their bills".

Adding "like other programmes, for example our drought programme over the last couple of years, £125m for that was funded by shareholders.

Our shareholders too will be expected to fund the cost of this incident".

In a statement SWW said the overall bill for compensation or insurance payments to those who have been unwell was not "available currently".

More than 1.4m bottles of water have been distributed from water stations or delivered to people's homes

On Tuesday SWW alongside installing equipment to remove cryptosporidium from the water supply, the network had been "flushed" 27 times.

It also apologised to customers and thanked them for their patience.

At the end of May the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) confirmed the number of confirmed cases of people affected by a water parasite outbreak had risen to 100.

Cryptosporidium can cause diarrhoea and sickness.