Water back on for thousands hit by outage
BBCMains water has returned to thousands of homes after supplies were lost on Wednesday morning.
Southern Water said it had fixed the problem at the Testwood Water Supply Works in Totton, Hampshire, and all dependent storage reservoirs were re-filling.
The firm said water had been restored to 58,000 properties affected in parts of Southampton, Eastleigh, Romsey and the New Forest at about 02:00 GMT,
Three bottled water stations will still open this morning at 0800.
Managing director Tim McMahon said: "We are sorry for the disruption caused to customers over the last two days, and would like to thank them for their patience as we worked to restore supply.
"We also apologise to those customers on the priority services register who had to wait an unacceptably long time to receive their water deliveries.
"We'll review this incident carefully and learn the lessons to improve our processes."
Bottled water stations opening from 08:00
- Staplewood Football Development Centre, Marchwood, Southampton SO40 4WR
- Places Leisure Centre – Passfield Avenue, Eastleigh, SO50 9NL
- Calshot Road Car Park, Calshot, SO45 1BS
Some people may notice airlocks in their pipes as their supply comes back on.
The water firm said: "If running taps does not resolve it they can call Southern Water and we will arrange for a plumber to call.
"Similarly, when taps are first run following an outage, discoloured water is normal."
Mr McMahon added the Testwood site was "very old" and £250m was being invested into "bringing it up to standard" over the course of seven years.
Explaining what had happened to supplies, he said: "Through some of those planned works on Tuesday, when we were starting up the site, we were having problems getting it going and we had some dirty water in that part of the site.
"We couldn't let that go forward, we can't put it into supply, it's illegal, we wouldn't do it and the site shut down, and then we had to get rid of that water and that took about 24 hours.
"Also, because it's an old site it takes time to get it working and that's what we've been working very hard on."
A briefing for local authorities and politicians on Wednesday said the problems were to do with ultraviolet (UV) disinfectant treatment at the site.
One attendee, who asked not to be named, said: "Although there were parts on site to fix the UV lamps, there had to be a complete shutdown in order to put the new lamps in."
In a statement, the firm's head of customer service Ashley Marshman said: "It's not good enough for our customers and we accept that.
"We need to do better in setting up our bottled water stations quicker and getting customers the supply they need."
Customers previously reported queuing for two hours for free bottled water at the emergency stations.
Darren Talbot, from Holbury, said his household was listed on Southern Water's priority services register but a bottled supply had not arrived.
His son Jaxxon had a gastrostomy earlier in 2024 and they need water so a tube that takes food straight into his stomach is clean.
Mr Talbot said: "Everyone's already juggling family, work, presents. You throw this in the mix, you've got to be Superman or Superwoman to make it happen."
The disruption came as households served by Southern Water discovered their bills would rise by 53% over the next five years - the highest increase in the country.
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