Southern Water has finally restored water supply to 58,000 customers, 2 days after first reporting a technical issue at its Testwood Water Supply Works. 

Customers in parts of Southampton, Eastleigh, Romsey and the New Forest were experiencing either low pressure or a loss of water supply caused by the fault.

Over the past two days Southern Water has been delivering bottled water to vulnerable customers on its Priority Services Register (PSR) and setting up bottled water stations. Deliveries of bottled water have continued during the night to households on the Register. Three bottled water stations will still open this morning at 08.00.

However, Southern Water issued a statement at 5pm yesterday evening saying that it was now using two contractors, and redoubling efforts to get water deliveries made to customers on the PSR.

“It is clear that some customers on the Register have been waiting much longer than they should have to receive a delivery. While the PSR list has more than tripled in the last 24 hours, if a vulnerable household is still waiting to receive water, that's not acceptable, and we are working hard to rectify this”, the statement said. .

Overnight, work continued to restore supply to homes and businesses, and just before 2am all properties were back on supply at full water pressure.

The water company said the Testwood water works is now fully operational, and supplying drinking water into the system at normal rates. All dependent storage reservoirs are re-filling.

Tim McMahon, Managing Director for Water at Southern Water, 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."