Decision Report 201304731

Summary

Mrs C complained on behalf of her mother (Mrs A), who owns a farm. She said that there had been an interruption in the water supply, yet Business Stream's charges were excessive compared with the normal usage. She said that at the time contractors were replacing the ring mains nearby. Scottish Water had given her mother no advance notice of the works, and when Mrs C approached the contractors to complain about the loss of water supply, they said they were unaware they had caused this. Further problems had arisen when the water was reconnected because an air lock was created. Mrs C said that Mrs A had to engage a plumber to fix this. When she raised the matter with Scottish Water, she was told that they believed that the high water consumption was due to an air lock, and they refused to accept responsibility for the high bill.

When we made enquiries of Business Stream, who are the service provider, it was confirmed that if planned works would cause disruption to supply, customers should receive 48 hours' notice. In this case, Business Stream said that Scottish Water had maintained that no works had been carried out in the locality. Business Stream had, however, noted that Mrs C had provided evidence that a neighbour had received notice of works at the time of the interruption to the supply, and this had not been followed up. Business Stream told us that they would investigate this further. They also offered, as a goodwill gesture, to reduce the disputed invoice to the usual charge, and to apologise to Mrs A for the upset she had experienced as a result of the complaint. We were satisfied that this provided a satisfactory resolution to Mrs C's complaint.