Southern Water will pay out £3 million to compensate those affected by the water supply issues. 

CEO Lawrence Gosden confirmed that the firm has earmarked £3 million to pay compensation costs to customers across Hampshire who experienced water supply issues last week.

Speaking to the BBC outside Parliament on Tuesday, Mr Gosden said: “To recognise the fact that this has been the second outage, we will be offering double the normal compensation, which takes the overall compensation to package to about £3m. So, we are hoping that will go someway to recognising the apology we have given to every one of our customers.”

READ MORE: Southern Water outages branded 'unacceptable' by minister

The MP for Winchester and Chandlers Ford Steve Brine said it was important that residents' and businesses' anger was recognised. 

He said: “I think what we can do is make sure that our constituents' anger is conveyed to them, we’ve certainly done that today.

"We can make sure that businesses that were affected get what they deserve, over and above that actually, and we will be doing that, we will be following this through.”

This was the second major outage for Southern Water in the past six months after supply issues affected Hampshire residents just before Christmas.

Approximately 13,000 homes were affected by either low water pressure or water outrages in this latest failure from Wednesday, February 15 to Sunday, February 19, with people in Winchester, Eastleigh and Southampton affected.

Customers who are eligible for compensation will be written to directly, however Southern Water says it may be difficult to identify all the properties involved.

Customers affected who are not contacted are asked to make a claim (either orally or in writing) within three months of the date their supply was cut off.