Flintshire homes offered just £1.32 for three days without water
Residents at the Willow Park residential mobile home site in Mancot have criticised Welsh Water after being offered just £1.32 each in compensation for a three-day water outage.
The outage, which lasted from 14 to 17 August, was caused by a burst main that left thousands of homes across Flintshire without running water. Most affected households received compensation of between £200 and £250.
However, Willow Park residents say they have been treated unfairly after Welsh Water classed the entire 159-home community as a single customer account.
The company issued a single compensation payment of £210 for the whole site, equating to £1.32 per household.
Cllr Sam Swash, who represents Hawarden and Mancot on Flintshire County Council, described the offer as “insulting.”
He said: “Residents across Flintshire endured three days without running water and were rightly compensated. Yet Welsh Water thinks people living on Willow Park deserve just £1.32 for the exact same hardship. Their laughable compensation offer isn’t even enough to buy a bottle of water. It is scandalous, insulting, and utterly indefensible.”
The row follows long-standing concerns about the site’s water infrastructure. Residents have previously launched a Senedd petition calling for a legal right to individual water meters, arguing that shared supply arrangements leave them vulnerable to leaks and unfair billing.
The Willow Park Residents’ Association estimates that the community has collectively paid more than £350,000 over the years for water lost through leaks in shared pipes – water they did not use and could not control.
Cllr Swash added: “This is not the first time that residents of Willow Park have been disadvantaged by Ofwat’s recharging regulations, which allow residents to be charged for leaks and then ensure they aren’t compensated properly when outages occur.”
He has urged Ofwat to review the regulations governing shared-supply sites, while residents are calling for fair treatment and compensation parity with the rest of Flintshire.
A Welsh Water spokesperson said: “We did compensate account holders that were affected by the supply disruption.”
“While we sympathise with the residents, we provide a single supply to the site. ”
“The billing agreement and supply arrangements is a private matter for the landlord and tenants.”
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