Jeremy Hunt MP described the Thames Water meeting with the new Thames Water CEO Chris Weston as "difficult but useful."
The meeting hosted by Jeremy Hunt MP and Angela Richardson MP was an opportunity to discuss the water outages, slow compensation payments, and sewage spills in Godalming, Milford, Bramley, and surrounding areas. It was also an opportunity for CEO Chris Weston to see for himself the widespread frustration with the compensation arrangements. As a result he has agreed to meet three representatives of the affected customers personally. On top of the compensation payments, Thames Water have offered every affected customer £30.
Ofwat's CEO, who was present at the meeting, also made its first ever public commitment that Thames Water customers will not have to pick up the tab for Thames Water's management failings with higher bills. Jeremy Hunt said this for him "was the most significant achievement of the evening."
It is now known that the November outage was caused by a power failure, so it is good news that that there is now an uninterrupted power supply at Shalford Water Treatment.
Jeremy Hunt concluded: "on the whole there is some encouraging progress, but not all of the problems have been resolved. I will therefore host a third public meeting in June on the issue."
