Dwr Cymru has issued a grovelling apology to customers in Ceredigion and pledged £70 payments for every day they have been without water.

Ceredigion MS Elin Jones posted a letter from the firm on Twitter which ‘apologises sincerely’ to those hit with supply interruptions over the weekend.

Thousands of homes saw taps run dry after the weekend freeze and resulting thawing, which led to more than 100 burst pipes across the network.

The company says payments will be deposited automatically into customers’ accounts some time in the ‘early new year’ - while businesses will also be contacted about compensation.

Supply has been restored to around 1,500 homes across west Wales, but as of yesterday morning, Dwr Cymru says around 900 properties were still without water, 200 of which were in Cardigan.

The firm said this morning that 200 homes are still waiting for supplies to be restored.

The letter reads: “I would like to apologise sincerely for the recent loss of water supply you have experienced.

“I appreciate that this has been a major inconvenience for you, your families and community.

“... We are undertaking a detailed review of the incident to learn from the issues that we encountered; however, it is clear that there are a number of areas where we could and should have done better – especially in terms of the provision of alternative water supplies in rural areas, timely communication with customers on the issues we were facing and local updates on the progress we were making to rectify these issues.

“The number of repairs we had to make on our network, together with the number of burst pipes customers had on their own properties, as well as poor weather conditions and the rural nature of the area all contributed to the amount of time it took to restore the service.

“... Recognising that many customers were without supply for 12 hours or more, many for a number of days, we will pay our households customers £70 per day in compensation and to cover any additional costs that may have been incurred such as the purchase of bottled water.”

Dwr Cyrmru was recently ranked in the six worst performing water companies in England and Wales by regulator Ofwat – with its record on supply interruptions said to be particularly substandard.