Thames Water Clarifies Compensation Payments

Published on: 22 Apr, 2024
Updated on: 25 Apr, 2024

Jeremy Hunt MP addressing the Thames Water public meeting on April 12

By Martin Giles

Thames Water has clarified a statement made by their new CEO at a public meeting held in Godalming on April 12.

He appeared to say that all customers would be receiving £30 compensation whether directly affected or not but a ‘Tweet’ from Jeremy Hunt MP (Surrey South West) has clarified that this will only be paid to affected customers.

Mr Hunt wrote: “At the public meeting last Friday, Thames Water offered a minimum £30 ‘goodwill’ payment to all affected. This week I followed up with TW to request clarification about how this payment would be assessed and how it would be paid.

Chris Weston the new CEO of Thames Water responding to questions and criticisms at the meeting. Next to him are Guildford’s MP Angela Richardson and Jeremy Hunt.

He then quoted an update he had received from Thames Water: “We want to be clear that we absolutely believe everyone who has told us they were affected. There have been cases where our data doesn’t match-up with what people experienced but we don’t doubt for a moment that they are telling the truth.

The TW statement continued: “With that in mind, we are committed to the following:

Providing all customers affected by the water outage, no matter for how long, a payment of £30 as a credit to their bill.
Providing all customers that have felt the need to follow-up with a complaint or enquiry a payment of £30 in recognition of the poor experience. This will also be as a credit to their bill.
For those who followed-up with us, we will review each case individually to understand the amount the customer is requesting. If the customer hasn’t been clear, we will assign a sum which is a fair reflection of others on their supply network, but the minimum will be £30.

This will bring balance to the payments being made at a local level and applies regardless of how their feedback was received, whether that be through Thames Water, their MP or the Consumer Council for Water.”

Jeremy Hunt commented: “It is good to see CEO Chris Weston is meeting with those affected (as he agreed) in the coming weeks.”