Southern Water shortage: Winchester dairy herd without water for 18 hours

A farmer has said his dairy herd was left without water for 18 hours after supplies were disrupted in the days before Christmas.

Oliver Neagle's Winchester farm is one of 20,000 Southern Water customers who have either suffered with low pressure or been without water since Wednesday.

The company said pipes burst in the thaw after freezing temperatures.

Southern Water said it had worked hard to service those on its priority register.

Oliver Neagle said his cows were drinking water from the fire engine quicker than it was able to get it out

But Mr Neagle, 50, said while he was able to feed his Hiltonbury Jersey herd he could not get enough water in them.

"To try and put it into perspective, there's 130 milking cows roughly averaging 22 litres of milk a day and they need 4 litres of water for every litre of milk they produce," he said.

"So they need about 12-14,000 litres of water a day just to maintain health and production."

'Bacteria issues'

He said a fire engine eventually came to his aid and the cows were drinking directly from the back of it because they were so thirsty.

However, Mr Neagle said he had been unable to clean the milking parlour.

"You can't wash the milking plant through so you'll have issues with bacteria - you can't wash the bulk tank," he said.

"If we'd known we could have got some holding tanks ready."

Oliver Neagle said his dairy herd needs up to 14,000 litres of water a day to produce milk

Southern Water said it had delivered through the day and night to people on its priority services register.

In a statement released on Friday morning, the firm said it was in a position where it believed it could meet demand and that "customers will see water supply in their homes over the coming hours".

It again apologised for the inconvenience to its customers who are still having to collect bottled water from four water stations in the SO postcodes, and told the BBC compensation would be forthcoming.

But the company has been criticised by Romsey and Southampton North MP Caroline Nokes who said the problems it faced had "been a long time coming".