On Tuesday 10 Feb, dozens of Green Hammerton residents met with Yorkshire Water to give the company a strong message about days of poor communication and no replacement water supplies in January.
The meeting, held in Green Hammerton Village Hall, was attended by five members of Yorkshire Water, including Director of Customer Distribution & Collection, Matt Pinder.
Each representative from Yorkshire Water spoke about the issues and were conciliatory in their tone, recognising that they had made a big mistake.
Councillor Arnold Warneken (Green Party, Ouseburn Division), called director Matt Pinder before the meeting to ask for a decent deal for the community, and recognition of the hardship caused.
Yorkshire Water repeatedly apologised during the meeting and said “It should not have happened”. In recognition of their faults, each resident will automatically receive £70 compensation, and the community’s hub will receive a donation of £1400. This is in addition to any compensation residents are entitled to.
Councillor Warneken said:
I’m pleased that Yorkshire Water have come to listen to the community, especially given the difficulty that many have had in getting hold of someone at the company. It’s great that they have recognised the seriousness with a donation to the community. For many people, we know that nothing can compensate for the extreme difficulty that the lack of water and information caused them. I’m particularly mindful of – the vulnerable, and the carers who already have very challenging circumstances without the extra burden of no water.
The residents had some really useful observations and didn’t hold back when describing the consensus of lack of service.
We will now have to wait and see whether Yorkshire Water will change their ways and truly listen to customers, instead of believing their automated systems.
To everyone in the community, Yorkshire Water have told us that everyone should receive their compensation payments automatically by the 18th February. I will be keeping a watchful eye on whether future promises are delivered.
Russ Piper was one of the residents who spoke at the meeting. He has an adult disabled son, whose carer needed buckets of water to flush the toilet.
He said:
“I tried to ring, I got cut off. When I got through the automatic message told about the hosepipe ban which had ended four weeks earlier whilst on hold. And then when they responded to my complaint, they missed my point about communication – which suggests it’s a systemic problem. Yet with our electricity supplier where we are registered with their priority team the experience is different – previously we have received a text and then a follow-up call.”
Another priority services customer who has a disabled wife said he was told he would have water, but it never arrived and when he followed it up, a call handler tried to sell him boiler insurance. Several other residents were told they needed a plumber, because the company assumed that their systems, rather than the customers, were right.
Another resident said that the customer service was frustrating and “it would be easier to chew a brick” than talk to the call handler.
Yorkshire Water said there were 41 people registered on the Priority Services Register in the village – these are people who are disabled or need extra support in the event of supply disruption.
Councillor Warneken went on to say:
I’m grateful to the YW Team for attending the meeting. We agreed on one thing: “They got it wrong”.
And to those Priority customers unable to attend, I can assure you – we fought your corner.
