Anglian Water to give King's Lynn community a ‘goodwill’ £8,000 after weekend with no water
Anglian Water is to donate £8,000 across West Norfolk after thousands of customers recently lost their supply.
However, the company is not giving the 6,000 people left without water £150 compensation the sum they offered for people short of water for more than 24 hours.
Many residents have claimed they didn’t have water for more than 24 hours, but were only compensated £30.
Now, Anglian Water has given a total of £8,000 split across the areas near Lynn most affected by the waterless weekend.
The money will be split four ways, with £2,000 each to North Wootton Village Hall, South Wootton Village Hall, Reffley Community Hall and Castle Rising Parish Council.
Cllr Rob Colwell organised a petition which gained 1,300 signatures, with the aim of getting all those who were cut off the whole £150.
Cllr Colwell said: “I hope these funds will benefit the communities hit by the heatwave leak. I also hope key lessons have been learnt by Anglian Water.
"It has made me realise even more the importance of King’s Lynn having local representation, people who live in the area, who can call out issues that occur on the ground during an event, and hopefully make a difference.”
Several residents made complaints to Anglian Water in the past few weeks.
Anglian Water’s response to residents wanting more compensation was that people were already getting above the OFWAT statutory guaranteed standards of what was meant to be paid.
In a letter to Cllr Colwell, chief executive of Anglian Water Peter Simspon said: “Thank you for sharing the petition you have set up.
"We were aware of it, and the social media messages about the incident, so we do understand how some residents feel about our compensation payment arrangements.
“Of course it goes without saying how incredibly sorry we are that this incident occurred. We’re very sorry for the inconvenience caused to our customers and we know it couldn’t have happened at a worse time during the hot weather.
“This data is the only fair way to establish which properties were affected when and for how long, ensuring we treat all customers consistently.
"This meant, that according to our data, any customers who did not have any water for up to 24 hours, received £30 and those who had no water for more than 24 hours received £150.
“In recognition of the disruption and community impact we are going to provide a gesture of goodwill payment to four key local community groups; North Wootton Village Hall, South Wootton Village Hall, Reffley Community Hall and Castle Rising Parish Council. I am in touch with those organisations to make arrangements for those payments so that they can best decide how to use the funds for local community benefit.”