COMPENSATION will be paid to all households who were left without gas during an Islandwide outage this month, it has been confirmed.
Island Energy chief executive Jo Cox said yesterday that commercial customers would be treated differently, with compensation considered on a “case-by-case basis”.
Details of the payout to domestic customers, which is “likely” to be automatically paid into accounts, would be released next week, she added.
News regarding compensation came 12 days after the start of the outage on 7 October, when around 4,000 customers found themselves without gas.
The process of reconnection began towards the end of last week, and Island Energy said work was continuing to ensure remaining customers – a figure of 200-250 was its latest estimate on Wednesday – had their supply back.
Mrs Cox said: “We are very sorry for the continuing disruption a small number of customers are facing, but can confirm that the majority of our customers are now fully restored.
“We are fully aware of the disruption of supply that all our customers have had to deal with over the last week or so and we sincerely apologise for the inconvenience caused.”
On compensation, Ms Cox added: “We will be getting communication out next week with details of our plans – exact amounts have yet to be calculated but when we have been able to confirm what we can do, the payment will most likely be automatically applied to customers’ accounts.”
Customers have been asked not to call the customer services department, as compensation claims will not be processed through that channel.
Mrs Cox added: “For commercial customers, there will be a different process due to the variety of businesses of all shapes and sizes that we supply – there will be a more in-depth process which business customers will have to go through in order for us to review their account on a case-by-case basis.”
An engineer visited Jersey Rugby Club in St Peter yesterday afternoon to reconnect the gas supply after the club warned on social media that tomorrow’s home fixture, including a sold-out pre-match lunch, was in jeopardy because Island Energy had previously failed to respond to pleas for help in reconnecting its gas supply.
