Keep boiling, people in South Devon told

But water company says they're making progress

Nearly a month on from an incident which has left people in parts of South Devon needing to boil their water before drinking, or rely on bottled water, South West Water claims it's making progress on making the water supply safe again.

More than a hundred people have been taken ill because of a parasite called cryptosporidium.

Affected households still need to take precautions and not drink direct from the tap, but the firm says it will help if they flush loos and clean with the public supply.

Incident director David Harris said: "Our regular sampling results show we are making good progress with removing cryptosporidium from the water supply in Kingswear, Hillhead and upper parts of Brixham area. 

"Our teams are continuing to complete our programme of work, which includes rigorous cleaning processes, as well as installation of additional protection measures, such as specialised filters and ultra violet treatment.

"In the meantime, we encourage people to continue to use water around their homes for washing, cleaning and flushing toilets. The smaller pipes in customer homes compared with our network means that water moves through home plumbing at a much greater speed. This speed of movement creates enough force to clean the pipes in customers’ homes and so it is important customers continue to ensure they use water, but boil it for any consumption like drinking and brushing teeth.

"We are working as quickly as possible to fix this situation. Public health remains our absolute priority and we will only lift the boil water notice when we are confident it is safe to do so and our public health partners agree. We will continue to keep customers and businesses up to date with progress. 

"Our main priority is to return supply to the quality our customers expect and deserve, quickly and safely.”