Hampshire farmer loses cows after water outages
Thousands of people were without water in December and February
A Hampshire dairy farmer who lost his water supply twice in three months says he's had to put down at least 15 cows.
Oliver Neagle's herd at Compton near Winchester was left without water for 18 hours last December and again for four days in February, when thousands of people were cut off.
He became so desperate he called the fire brigade for help.
Some of his other cows are no longer producing milk.
Mr. Neagle told us he's worried his business could go under.
Chief Customer Officer for Southern Water, Katy Taylor, said: “I am very sorry to hear of the distress and disruption caused to the farm following the water supply issues during the winter. I understand the enormous impact this has had on the farm, and we are in touch with the family to support them.
“Given February’s incident happened so soon after the interruption in December, we decided to double the amounts of money that would normally be awarded to everyone affected. This led to a number of payments being made, via our business retailer, to the third-party bill payer of this farm. We are now working with that third party to try and have those payments released directly to the family.
“We have recently published the investigation report into why the incident in February took place. We are spending £350 million over eight years at the nearby Otterbourne Water Supply Works to reduce the likelihood of a similar supply outage in the future.”
A report into the outage in February can be viewed here.
It's believed December’s water loss was caused by a different issue - an unfortunate freeze thaw event, bursting a key water supply pipe close to the Otterbourne Water Supply Works.
Since these two incidents, Southern Water say they offered a community donation and spoke to local people to find out how they wanted the money to be spent.
The company decided the money would go to foodbanks so those who were most affected by the loss of water supply would benefit.
A total of £50,000 was given to five local foodbanks.