Householders in North Lancashire are receiving apology letters and promises of compensation after being left without water for days.
United Utilities has been writing to residents after the issues with the water supply in North Lancashire before Christmas and will pay out to anyone who suffered a loss of supply for 12 hours or more.
The water company turned off the water in Morecambe on December 19, affecting around 16,000 properties, to deal with an unprecedented number of pipe leaks and bursts caused by a freeze-thaw in weather temperatures. There were also issues in Heysham, Lancaster, Carnforth and the surrounding areas, with many customers being left without water for two days or more.
United Utilities has said that anyone without water for more than 12 hours will receive £30 for the first 12 hours and then a further £30 for each additional 12 hour period. It will be paid via cheque, BACs or a credit to their water account depending on how each individual customer’s account is set up.
Compensation will be paid automatically and the company says customers do not need to contact them about it.
A resident of the Morecambe Road area sent us the message he'd received from the water company about compensation.
It said: "I would like to sincerely apologise for the issues you have experienced with your water supply. We know that having either low water pressure or no water for any length of time is a real inconvenience and I wanted to explain what happened. "The problem was caused by the recent freezing weather conditions, followed by the rapid rise in temperature. Many customers and United Utilities experienced frozen pipes during this time, which then split and burst as the temperature increased. This caused an unprecedented amount of leaks across the network, on customers’ own pipes either inside their homes or on their underground water supply pipes. "In your area, the amount of leaking pipes resulted in so much water being lost from our network that it meant that your water pressure was either very low or you had no water for a period of time. At one point, we were supplying more water into our network of pipes than we’ve ever done before to try and cope with the amount of water being lost through leaks. "We have lots of data loggers out across the network on our pipes so we can see who is experiencing disruption at any point in time, and this helps us to identify how long you were effected and what payment we need to make to you as an apology for the disruption. From our data we can see that you had continuous loss of supply for over 48 hours which means in line with our guaranteed standards of service we will make a payment of £120.00. "You don’t need to do anything, the total amount of £120.00 will be sent to you by cheque and you should receive it within the next 7 working days."
The resident said he was very pleased with the amount of compensation.
As regards compensation for businesses which had to close during the water shutdown, United Utilities said: "All business customers who were without a water supply continuously for more than 12 hours will automatically receive compensation and this will be paid proactively to the their retailer who will then make arrangements for how the businesses receive it.
"In terms of financial loss, we are advising businesses to check with their insurer to see if they can claim for any losses they may have incurred."
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