Plymouth military families to receive £42,250 in compensation after April water outage

The water outage, which occurred in April of this year, initially prompted South West Water to offer £250 to each household affected. However, the payment could not be issued to service families directly, as their water bills are paid by the Ministry of Defence (MOD.) The Ministry initially stated that its policy only allows compensation for outages lasting more than seven days— longer than the duration of this incident.

The position led to complaints from military families who felt they were being treated unfairly.

Plymouth Moor View MP Fred Thomas, a former Royal Marine, raised the issue with ministers, arguing that the Armed Forces Covenant—intended to ensure service personnel are not disadvantaged—was being undermined.

Minister for Veterans & People, Al Cairns, has now responded to Mr Thomas confirming that 169 service households will receive compensation totalling £42,250.

Each household will receive £250, bringing them in line with compensation offered to civilian residents affected by the same incident.

Fred Thomas MP said: “I am delighted that I have been able to secure this money for our armed forces personnel and their families.

“But this has always been about much more than the money, it has been about upholding the clear principle of the Armed Forces Covenant: that no one should be disadvantaged by dint of their service.

“Ensuring these households received compensation was about ensuring they were treated the same as their non-military neighbours and I am pleased that the minister, himself a former Royal Marine like myself, has understood the importance of putting this right.” Hear all the latest news from across the UK on the hour, every hour, on Greatest Hits Radio on DAB, smartspeaker, at greatesthitsradio.co.uk, and on the Rayo app.