Regulator Ofwat to effective South East Water £22million over provide failures that hit 286,000 individuals
Ofwat plans to fine South East Water £22million over water supply failures between 2020 and 2023 impacting more than 286,000 people.
The water regulator said it was consulting over the fine after homes in Kent and Sussex were hit by multiple supply interruptions over the years.
South East Water ‘lacked ownership’ for fixing the root cause of supply failures and did not maintain important infrastructure, the watchdog said.
It said its investigations found that the water company ‘failed to maintain supply-system resilience’ to minimise incidents occurring and failed to plan to make sure it had sufficient headroom to deal with periods of high demand.
Ofwat interim chief executive Chris Walters said today: ‘South East Water’s significant failings caused major disruption and had a huge impact on thousands of its customers.
‘Not only did the company fail in its duty to provide a water supply to meet the demands of its customers, but it also fell short when it came to providing support for customers who lost their supply. They must do better.
‘This investigation gets to the heart of the company’s supply resilience problems. We want to see South East Water take more responsibility and get on with fixing things for its customers.’
In January, industry body Water UK said South East Water would be raising bills by an average 7 per cent to £324 a year from April.
A bottled water station in East Grinstead in January after a South East Water outage in Sussex
SEW boss David Hinton is paid a base salary of £400,000 and yearly bonus of up to £115,000
The announcement came after the firm’s customers suffered days of supply disruption that month blamed on Storm Goretti causing burst pipes and power cuts.
That followed a similar incident the previous month when 24,000 people in Tunbridge Wells were left without drinking water for two weeks.
South East Water has been run since 2020 by chief executive David Hinton, who is paid a base salary of £400,000 and yearly bonus of up to £115,000.
The married father-of-two, 58, who lives in Farnham, Surrey, received a 30 per cent pay rise last year and also enjoys car benefits and a generous pension package.
More to follow
