Jeremy Hunt urges Thames Water to 'get a grip' on outage payouts

Bottled water stations were set up to hand out emergency supplies to residents in Surrey last year

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has called for Thames Water to "get a grip" on awarding compensation to Surrey residents who faced problems with their supply for several days.

The MP for South West Surrey said hundreds of constituents had complained about the claims system.

He also raised concerns that issues over the firm's infrastructure had "not been resolved" after the loss of water in November.

Thames Water has since apologised.

In November, a major incident was declared after thousands of customers in the Guildford and Godalming area were left without water for several days.

Thames Water apologised, saying Shalford treatment works in Guildford had faced issues after Storm Ciarán.

Jeremy Hunt says "hundreds" of Surrey constituents have complained about issues with Thames Water payouts

On BBC Radio Surrey Mr Hunt said "people are finding they're not getting awarded the compensation that they should be getting".

"I've had hundreds of messages, and some of these people have been given peanuts for not having had water for a week, or even told that they did have their water when they didn't," he said.

He added residents were "absolutely furious" about the incident, which affected up to 12,000 people and businesses.

"Thames Water just need to get a grip on the problem," he said.

The chancellor, who held a public meeting with Guildford MP Angela Richard and the interim co-chief executive of Thames Water in December, said he would hold another meeting with the company's outgoing chief this week.

He said he was also in talks with Thames Water's compensation team and had invited the firm to attend another public meeting by spring.

The company was also forced to apologise on Boxing Day after further outages in parts of Guildford.

Mr Hunt said he was "concerned that the fundamental problems" with its "antiquated" infrastructure had "not been resolved".

But he added Thames Water was putting in about £100m into the area as part of a government requirement for water companies to invest £56bn over 25 years.

'We're very sorry'

A Thames Water spokesperson said it was addressing claims on a case-by-case basis.

"We're very sorry to customers in Guildford and Godalming who were affected by water outages last November," they said.

"We have already credited over 12,000 customers' accounts, but should any customers have queries based on what they have already received, we ask that these queries are submitted to us no later than 31 January and we aim to respond within 20 workings days of receiving a request."

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