Littlehampton bill mistakes admitted by Southern Water

WATER chiefs have admitted that hugely inflated water bills, which caused a flood of complaints in the Littlehampton area, were caused by mistakes when reading meters
By The Newsroom
Published 1st Oct 2009, 14:39 BST
Updated 8th Jun 2018, 00:57 BST

Southern Water owned up to the errors at the same time as announcing plans to install meters in all the homes it serves.

Read about Claire Smith's high water bill here.

Read more complaints about high water bills in response to Claire Smith's story here.

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Read how Littlehampton's MP Nick Gibb got involved with the water row, here.

The company has said that the problems back in June, with customers reporting bills up to nine times their usual level, would not be repeated.

Meter error

A spokesman said: "Since becoming aware of the erroneous meter readings which affected a small number of our customers in the Littlehampton area, we have thoroughly reviewed our meter reading procedures.

"At the time, the problem was not widespread and only affected a small number of our customers.

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"We are confident that the systems we have in place and our procedures will prevent a recurrence."

Wrong readings

Initially, the company denied any error.

In June, Southern Water said the bills were correct, but added that previous bills had been based on "erroneously low" meter readings.

Nick Gibb, MP for Littlehampton and Bognor, was asked by residents to look into the issue, after the Littlehampton Gazette reported that more than 20 metered households in Littlehampton, Angmering, Rustington and East Preston were issued with the high bills, with one woman's shooting from 100 to 800 a quarter.

He said: "It was a matter of a member of staff not reading the meters properly, and this was discovered after an investigation by the company. I am confident that this was a training issue."

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He added that all those affected were refunded the excess charges, and handed a 25 goodwill payment.

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