Hampshire farmer forced to cull cows after water cut off

Oliver Neagle said he was forced to cull some of his dairy herd after water shortages

A dairy farmer who lost part of his herd after his water supply was cut off twice in three months has said his financial situation has become "dire".

Oliver Neagle said 18 of his cows had to be put down, and a number of others were no longer producing milk.

Water supplies were cut off in part of Hampshire for several days in December and February when bottled water was handed out to about 20,000 customers.

Southern Water said it was trying to get compensation released to Mr Neagle.

The farmer said he pays his landlord for water but believes he should be directly compensated by the utility firm.

Southern Water said payments had been made to the landlord which it was trying to release to Mr Neagle.

Since the outages, the number of milking cows on Mr Neagle's farm in Winchester has gone from 110 to 82, leaving him struggling financially.

He said: "It's pretty dire and we can't get hold of anybody significant at Southern Water to say how they are going to help."

Some of the Jersey cows became sick after the water was cut off

When water supplies were cut off for almost three days in December, Southern Water said it was due to burst pipes.

Mr Neagle's cows were left without water for 18 hours and he became so desperate he called the fire brigade for help.

Then in February, the water went off again for four days after a problem at a filtration plant.

Mr Neagle said his herd needed to drink about 12,000 to 14,000 litres of water a day to maintain health and production.

He said: "We couldn't clean the milking machinery properly and that causes all sorts of different diseases and mastitis. Things like that just go through the herd."

In a statement, Southern Water said it was "very sorry to hear of the distress and disruption caused to the farm" and it understood "the enormous impact this has had".

Chief customer officer Katy Taylor said: "We are in touch with the family to support them."

The company said it had made a number of compensation payments to Mr Neagle's landlord, adding: "Efforts are under way to have those payments released directly to the family."

Mr Neagle said he has not heard from his landlord, but judging by payments received by other people he knows in the area believes the amount would fall short of the costs he has incurred and wants the company to deal with him separately.