South West lifts boil notice for 900 more properties

South West Water has lifted its boil water notice for a further 900 properties in Devon after traces of cryptosporidium were detected in the system last month.

The notice is being lifted for properties in the Kingswear, Noss Marina, Hillhead Park and Raddicombe supply zones, while a further 1,350 properties in other areas remain subject to the notice.

These are located in the Summercombe, Chestnut Drive, Higher Brixham, Southdown, Upton Manor and St Mary’s supply areas which are on a different part of the network.

Originally around 40,000 properties were told to boil their water following the outbreak, caused by a damaged air valve casing on private land.

David Harris, incident director at South West Water, said the company had “thoroughly cleaned” its network and had “added a double layer of protection using ultraviolet treatment and specialist microfilters to provide additional barriers”.

He added: “Hundreds of South West Water network technicians, engineers, water quality scientists and contractors have worked day and night over many weeks to fix this issue.

“Our extreme efforts have worked – testing by independent experts along with our scientists confirmed the effectiveness of our interventions. Compared to similar incidents globally, where resolutions took significantly longer, our intensive work has allowed us to lift the boil water notices within weeks.”

Harris further added that South West is “confident that we will be able to announce the next phases of lifting soon”.

Drinking water can become contaminated with cryptosporidium for a number of reasons and the parasite can cause sickness and diarrhoea if consumed.

Initial tests conducted on 14 May showed that the treated water leaving South West’s treatment works was not contaminated, but further tests taken overnight and the following morning revealed traces of the parasite.

Last week the company’s chief executive Susan Davy refused to speculate on when the boil notice will be lifted for the remaining customers.

She said that despite the network being flushed 27 times it is still “going to take some time” before the notice is lifted.