Thames Water 'must compensate people who lost water during Beast from the East'

Last month Thames Water said it would compensate households that went without water during the extreme Beast from the East
PA
Owen Sheppard9 April 2018

Thames Water should stick by its promise to compensate households that went without water in the aftermath of the Beast from the East, a minister said today.

Environment minister Thérèse Coffey said she would speak next week to the water company to ensure they “honoured their commitment” to customers who lost water last month.

Her comments came after some customers said they had only been offered £30 for losing water for 48 hours, instead of the promised £150.

Ms Coffey said: “The tens of thousands of people who lost their water supply following the big freeze must be properly compensated.”

UK Weather: Beast from the East freeze - In pictures

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Last month Thames Water said it would pay £30 to households that went without water for between four and 12 hours, rising to £150 for those affected for 72 hours.

The company also said it would make discretionary payments of £2,500 to schools that were forced to close.

But Labour MP Dr Rosena Allin-Khan, MP for Tooting, claimed the firm used “inaccurate data” to assess the scale and size of the payments, meaning local residents had been offered the wrong amount.

Some 50,000 London homes were affected - with thousands more in the Home Counties - after frozen water pipes thawed and cracked. Some of the capital’s worst-affected areas were in the south, including Tooting and Streatham, where taps ran dry for four days.

Industry regulator Ofwat later criticised Thames Water and other providers, by suggesting they had “fallen well short” in planning for the forecasted extreme weather.

A Thames Water spokesman said it had written to every customer affected and that it was making every effort to get the correct money to affected Londoners.

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