The boil water notice introduced six weeks ago in response to the cryptosporidium outbreak is being lifted for customers in Kingswear, Noss Marina, Hillhead Park and Raddicombe, South West Water (SWW) has announced.

In total, 852 households and 50 non-household properties will no longer have to boil their tap water as from today (June 26).

David Harris, SWW’s incident director, said water supplies for the lucky residents “now meet the high standards our customers expect”.

At the height of the outbreak last month, in excess of 17,000 households were told to boil their tap water after more than 100 people reportedly fell ill, with two needing hospital treatment.

Businesses, particularly those related to the tourism sector, were also severely impacted following reports of hotel cancellations and pub landlords having to boil dozens of litres of water every day.

Customers in the Summercombe, Chestnut Drive, Higher Brixham, Southdown, Upton Manor and St Mary's supply areas - totalling 1,350 properties - are still being instructed to boil their tap supply as they are on a different part of the network.

The company discovered the source of the contamination weeks ago, saying the microscopic parasite had entered a pipe through a damaged air valve casing located on a private field.

Since then, the firm has been flushing out pipes and adding specialist micro-filters to fix the problem.

Aside from issuing a boil notice, SWW set up three bottled water stations in and around Brixham, handing out half a million bottles within the first week of the outbreak.

Earlier this month, the boil notice was lifted for 21 customers between Hillhead and Boohay supply tanks.