A group of MPs led by Steve Brine visited the Southern Water facility at Otterbourne after a report was published into the loss of water supply in February and December.
Winchester & Chandler's Ford MP Steve Brine, Romsey MP Caroline Nokes and Eastleigh MP Paul Holmes visited the supply works which failed, leaving thousands of homes without water.
Bottled water stations were set up at the Ageas Bowl and several other locations to keep householders supplied from February 15-19. It was a similar story just before Christmas.
Southern Water said its systems shut down after they detected that untreated water was not being filtered properly. The fault resulted in a lengthy clean-up operation.
The report, published on April 28, said that it was due to a 'water quality shutdown' and that they are investing £350 million to improve the resilience of the site.
Mr Brine said: “The water supply issues that hit us just before Christmas were bad enough but, although for very different reasons, the loss of supply in February half-term infuriated us all. It was totally unacceptable.
“We promised to hold Southern Water to account for that and our visit to Otterbourne took place within hours of the incident report being finalised.
“Southern Water have taken steps, albeit with an impact on the pace of the Otterbourne site improvements works, to minimise the chances of a repeat but they know they’re being watched like hawks by all of us. The imminent report from the independent Drinking Water Inspectorate will be the next part of that.”
Tim McMahon, Southern Water’s water director, said: “We are very sorry to those who were impacted by this disruption. We have carried out a thorough internal review into what happened, in order to prevent it happening in future. It is important we are transparent with customers when we fall short of expectations.
“February’s incident was a case of human error and there are important lessons to be learned. The report has made a number of recommendations, and I’d like to reassure our Hampshire communities that we are already taking action. We are also investing around £350 million over eight years at Otterbourne to improve the resilience of our site.
“In recognition of the distress caused by this incident, particularly as it came only two months after a separate loss of water in the same area, we doubled our guaranteed standards of service payments for customers and provided a £50,000 donation to local food banks."
Pictured; The MPs with Southern Water team at Otterbourne during the visit.
More information ...
