Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water has further extended the precautionary ‘boil water’ notice issued to parts of Rhondda Cynon Taf following flooding at the company’s Tynywaun Water Treatment Works near Treherbert.

The weather gauge at Tynywaun measured the second highest rainfall in the UK last Saturday and Sunday during Storm Bert. Surface water ran down from the hill onto the drinking water storage tank and impacted the tank.

Some of the work to protect the tank from future flooding involves installing waterproof membranes around the storage tank. Membranes also need to be laid on the roof of the tanks and the team are limited in terms of the weight of machinery that can be used to achieve this.

A period of dry weather has been needed to achieve this successfully - Welsh Water’s efforts have been hampered by further wet weather during the week with more rain forecast.

The first boil notice was issued on Sunday, 24th November and ran until Sunday, 1st December - the company has now warned that customers will need to continue boiling their drinking water for another seven days until Sunday 8th December.

All customers impacted by the notice were notified via text to landlines and mobiles and received the same advice in a hard copy leaflet tomorrow in the post.

The company has been working with hospitals and care homes and delivering bottled water to customers with a high dependency on water who are on the Priority Services Register. It has also been delivering bottled water to schools in the affected areas so that they can stay open. Welsh Water has also separately established three bottled water stations.

At the same time Welsh Water announced that to recognise the inconvenience being experienced by customers and the cost of boiling water, each eligible household would be paid £150 in compensation over the following 10 working days to be automatically paid to customers in their bank accounts. Cheques are being issued over the coming weeks to customers who do not have registered a bank account with the utility.

Annoucing the extension of the “boil water notice” until 8^th December, Welsh Water said to recognise the extended inconvenience an extra payment will be made to customers of £100, on top of the original £150 payment. Businesses will be paid a further £200 following the original £300 compensation. Eligible affected companies will also be able to apply for a £2,500 scheme to compensate for certain costs/loss of gross profit.

Dwr Cymru Welsh Water CEO Peter Perry said:

“I’d like to thank all our customers in the affected areas of Rhondda Cynon Taf for their co-operation and patience and would like to apologise for the inconvenience.

“We are facing a number of challenges as we try to complete the repair to the water tank, with our teams working around the clock.

“I’d like to reassure everyone that we are doing everything we can and working day and night to ensure everything is back to normal as soon as possible.

“Protecting the health of our customers and providing them with a clean, fresh drinking water supply is our number one priority and we will not take any risks in terms of public health.”