Thousands of households affected by water outages caused by a burst water pipe in the past week will receive compensation.
South West Water said around 13,000 households will receive £250 in compensation after enduring major problems with their water supplies in recent days.
The compensation will be credited to the accounts of affected household customers, while businesses will receive separate compensation packages.
Affected households in locations like Plymouth, Tavistock, and Torquay will be eligible to receive the compensation from SWW.
SWW told This is Money that it would credit affected domestic customers with a guaranteed £50 payment per 12 hours without service, and £50 for each subsequent 12-hour period. .
A spokesman for SWW said: ‘This is over and above the current statutory amounts of £20 per 12 hours, and £10 per subsequent 24-hour period.
‘The total payment to household customers is £250, further details will be confirmed by letter in the coming days.’
Compensation: Thousands of households affected by water outages caused by a burst water pipe in the past week will receive compensation
SWW business customers will receive a £100 payment per 12 hours and £100 for each subsequent 12-hour period, which is above the current statutory payments of £50 per 12 hours and £25 for each subsequent 12-hour period.
The total compensation payment to affected business customers will be £500, SWW confirmed on Friday.
Separately, businesses will also be able to apply for compensation for additional loss of service. The water provider said it will share details of the additional process for businesses as soon as possible.
SWW said the compensation packages reflected a ‘gesture of goodwill’ to make amends for the disruption.
Approximately 13,000 properties in Plymouth and Tavistock lost their water supply after a pipe burst on Sunday.
On 20 April, the large 600mm diameter pipe that supplies raw water to Dousland Water Treatment Works failed suddenly and caused a burst.
On 22 April, around 9,500 properties were still without water but David Harris, SWW’s managing director for water services, said the aim was to ‘have everyone back on water by the time they wake up in the morning.’
On 23 April, South West Water published a statement stating the issue had been fixed and ‘customers should now be back in supply.’
A spokesman for SWW said in a statement on 23 April: ‘We are pleased to say that customers should now be back in supply.
‘We want to apologise again for the inconvenience this has caused, but we would also like to thank all of our customers for their patience and kindness to our teams on the ground providing bottled water.’
During the outage, Labour MP for Plymouth Moor View, Fred Thomas, said the debacle was ‘unacceptable.’
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