Thousands of households in Devon whose water supplies were hit by a parasite outbreak will be paid £3.5m in compensation. South West Water owner Pennon Group said it has offered £215 to all customers forced to boil their drinking water over the outbreak, which caused dozens of suspected cases of sickness and diarrhoea and left two people in hospital. Around 16,000 households and businesses in Brixham were initially told not to use their tap water for drinking without boiling and cooling it first, according to the Government. It came as Pennon revealed that it was cutting its dividend by £2.4m after receiving a record fine for separate incidents of illegally dumping sewage into rivers and the sea. The business was fined £2.2m in April last year for the pollution incidents in Devon and Cornwall, following an investigation by the Environment Agency that found South West Water culpable of significant environmental harm. Pennon Water said the decision to reduce its total payout to investors by 0.84p a share to 44.37p showed “we are listening, clearing the way for long-term shareholder value”. However, the total payout of £126.9m was still 3.8pc higher than the previous year. Chief executive Susan Davy said: “Whilst the results we...