South Ceredigion residents have spoken out about water supply interruptions that nearly stole Christmas – with many demanding greater compensation.

The nation’s main supplier Dwr Cymru was forced to issue an apology to customers in the region after many in areas like Lampeter, Llandysul and Cardigan were without water for four or more days.

The problems arose only weeks after it was named among the six worst performing of all 18 private water firms in the UK.

The firm - which is set to increase its bills by at least eight per cent - pledged £70 payments for every day a customer was without water during the period in December. But it is claimed some residents have received less money than they are entitled to.

A Cwrtnewydd resident also spoke to the Cambrian News and has criticised the ‘appalling’ way Dwr Cymru is continuing to treat its customers since the supply interruptions before Christmas.

"She said: It was bad enough to not have a drop of water from the evening of 17 December until the 23 December 2022," she said, "but it is especially not great as a smallholder - never mind no water for cooking, washing up, flushing the loo etc.

“As you likely know there were two places to collect water, an hour from my home, and invariably they ran out very quickly.

“According to Dwr Cymru most of us had water after the first two days, but that was not the case.

“Our councillor Euros Davies (Ceredigion County Council for Llanwenog) came on Christmas Eve with bottled water, to check if we had at some, at least, over Christmas.

“We finally got compensation payments yesterday, but everybody seems to have a different amount.

“I have received £175, that is two-and-a-half days. I wrote an email, phoned, messaged, and posted on Facebook, but got no reply or intent to sort this matter (from Dwr Cymru).

“I finally got to speak to somebody just now who understood me.

“I was told my payment is correct, that there is a flow meter in the pipes and even if just five mins of water flows past the meter it is classed as me having water, no matter if it reaches my house or not. Her words.

“I live two to three miles away from the reservoir at Gorsgoch, which provides me with water.

“The engineers who came to check my system on the 31st December told me the reservoir had been empty, creating big air locks - resulting in the lack of water.”

A Llanfihangel-ar-Arth customer, who wanted to remain anonymous, said they were only paid £105 for one-and-a-half days of disruption. But they claim they are owned seven days' worth of compensation in total.

Llandysul resident, environmentalist and long-time critic of Welsh Water, Robert Winter, said: “I did indeed lose water for some four days, as per the rest of Llandysul.

“There was a tanker with bottles made available to residents in one location, although this was not entirely satisfactory for everyone.

“I am not on the Registered Priority List but I understand that locally those that are, failed to receive any water delivered to them. They had to have friends and neighbours collect water for them.

“Nor were any of the registered vulnerable contacted and asked if they needed help or water delivery.

“I fail to understand how Welsh Water has such a poor-quality infrastructure with constant leaks, sewage overflows and poor customer service when they appear to have such a considerable sum of money (more than £1billion in reserves) at their disposal.”

Mr Winter was provided with an extra £20 because the firm didn’t respond to his complaint within 10 days, in line with targets.

Mr Winter – who runs a biodiversity group in the village – claims some of its members were much worse affected than he was and were without water for Christmas.

A Dwr Cymru spokesperson said: “We are of course sorry for the inconvenience caused to Mr Winter and all customers who had no water following the freeze thaw conditions the area saw in late December.

“The prolonged sub-zero temperatures we saw resulted in the ground across large areas freezing hard. The subsequent rapid thaw, which happened far quicker than anticipated, resulted in significant ground movement bursting many of our pipes. Such disruption and inconvenience is rare, and our teams worked tirelessly to restore supplies as quickly as possible.

“Recognising the disruption caused, we are making goodwill payments to all customers that were affected and this process is already underway. We are writing to all that were affected and making payments directly to them.

“For business customers, in addition to the goodwill payment, we also appreciate the significant impact this will have had on them at such a crucial time of the year and therefore will be making goodwill contributions towards certain losses incurred by these customers. We are writing to all business customers affected with more information on this.

“We again would like to say how sorry we are for the inconvenience that was caused and hope our goodwill payments reflects this to our customers”.

We have contacted Dwr Cymru about Ms Day's specific claims.

In November, private water industry regulator Ofwat released a damning report which criticised Dwr Cymru for drinking water standards, water quality and supply interruptions.

In October, the Cambrian News wrote multiple stories about the firm’s dreadful record on sewage discharges.

They revealed that Dwyfor Meirionnydd saw the second most sewage discharges of any region in England and Wales last year – followed closely behind by Ceredigion and Arfon (ranked ninth and 19th respectively for duration of leakage).

In its report, Ofwat found that Welsh Water was also behind other firms on its sewage treatment works compliance but it performed well for sewer flooding and pollution incidents.

Over the last two years, executives at Welsh Water have received £2.4million – including £808,000 in bonuses despite the poor performance of the company.

Welsh Liberal Democrat Leader and Mid & West Wales Senedd Member Jane Dodds said: “These are yet more disappointing results for Welsh Water yet the company has continued to give out large bonuses to its executives despite these poor results, supposedly being a non-profit and the ongoing sewage dumping scandal.

“These bonuses that are rewarding failure should be banned immediately and the finances redirected directly into improving infrastructure across the network.

“The Conservatives have failed to legislate against sewage dumping at a Westminster level at the same time as failing to give Ofwat any real regulatory teeth.

“We also need to see the Welsh Labour Government act to ensure that Natural Resources Wales has the funding and staffing it needs to do its job properly and that legislation is strengthened so that Water Companies can be more strictly regulated.”

In relation to the Ofwat report, a Welsh Water spokesperson said: “We are very disappointed with the outcome of Ofwat’s review and have already put measures in place to improve our performance in the areas highlighted.

“We continue to rank amongst the strongest performing companies on customer service and environmental performance, but recognise that further work is needed in some areas to meet the high standard we expect of ourselves and our customers expect of us.”