The founder of a new inland surfing lake in Easter Compton have apologised after being forced to cancel lessons.

The Wave opened its doors a month ago but has since run into problems.

A statement issued at the weekend said that all intermediate sessions for the rest of the month would be cancelled, with some December lessons likely to be affected as well.

Founder Nick Hounsfield said: "The intermediate wave we were running was not up to scratch - it just didn’t deliver the experience we wanted for our visitors.

"We made the big decision to suspend the original intermediate wave and replace it with a better wave setting, once that has been properly tested and risk assessed.

"We are carrying out testing on our new intermediate setting at the moment and those who have been refunded will be the first to know when we are ready to launch this wave and can rebook them in to ride it.

"The incredibly high volume of enquiries has meant huge delays getting back to everyone and understandably some people are pretty frustrated!

"We know it’s not good enough and we hate to keep people waiting for a response. We are working hard to resolve this issue and to get all bookings and refunds sorted as soon as we possibly can.

"If you are waiting to hear back from us, we are really very sorry and we will be in contact as soon as possible."

Nick also revealed his customer service team had received 'shocking abuse'.

"The only thing I ask is people treat our team as humans, he added."