More than 10,000 customers in Thanet have received compensation from a water company after they were left without supplies for days.

A burst pipe cut off as many as 20,000 homes in December, causing "gridlock" as residents queued for bottled water in Broadstairs, Manston, Margate and Ramsgate.

Southern Water has since made compensation payments to customers, but admits there have been delays in paying some people.

The chaos on December 19 and 20 left residents uneasy due to the uncertainty around when they would have water again.

South Thanet MP Craig Mackinlay said tensions rose to the point that his staff were verbally abused.

A statement by Southern Water said: "We understand how distressing the water outages have been for customers in Broadstairs and the surrounding area and we’re doing everything we can to ensure this does not happen again.

"We are continuing to make compensation payments through our guaranteed standards of service (GSS).

"Although we have made payments to more than 10,500 household and non-household customers by the end of January, there was a processing error which meant some customers were paid later than this.

"We’re very sorry for this delay, and we can report that most of these customers have now received their payment, along with an additional late payment of £20.

"We would encourage anyone that has not yet received their GSS payments to contact our customer service team on 0330 303 0277."