Ofwat launches probe into South East Water as thousands remain without supply

South East Water is under investigation by the industry watchdog after repeated outages since November have left tens of thousands of households and businesses without supply across Kent and Sussex.

Ofwat said it had launched a probe into whether the supplier had breached its licence condition by failing to comply with customer service standards obligations and offered appropriate support to affected customers during supply interruptions.

If the regular decides South East Water (SEW) has breached the conditions and should be stripped of the licence, the supplier could fall into a special administration regime until a new buyer was found.

If Ofwat rules that the supplier is in breach, but does not revoke the licence, penalties can include a fine of 10% of the firm’s annual turnover.

The latest incident has seen thousands of properties in Kent and Sussex left without drinking water for the sixth day running, with South East Water (SEW) blaming the outage on Storm Goretti causing burst pipes and power cuts.

As of Thursday morning, water had been restored to 16,500 properties in East Grinstead, but 8,500 customers in Kent remain without water, SEW have said.

Around 6,500 of those still affected are in Tunbridge Wells on a “booster system”, which the company said it now has a “new recovery plan” for.

Tunbridge Wells also suffered a sustained outage in November and December, with around 24,000 properties in and around the Kent town left without drinkable water for almost two weeks.

Ofwat has already launched an investigation into SEW’s supply resilience, looking at whether it has failed to develop and maintain an efficient water supply systems, which is ongoing.

Lynn Parker, Ofwat senior director for enforcement, said: “The last six weeks have been miserable for businesses and households across Kent and Sussex with repeated supply problems.

“We know that this has had a huge impact on all parts of daily life and hurt businesses, particularly in the run-up to the festive period.

“That is why we need to investigate and to determine whether the company has breached its licence condition.”

It is the first investigation launched by Ofwat into a potential breach of the customer-focused licence condition.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said on Wednesday that ministers were holding emergency daily meetings over the ongoing SEW outage.

A number of schools in Kent and Sussex have also been forced to close due to the outage.

The water company have said they are supporting schools, care homes, medical providers, and those with livestock with bottled water deliveries, along with supporting hospitals with tankers of water.

SEW chief executive David Hinton was grilled by MPs last week for his company’s handling of the November and December supply failure.

On Tuesday, Alistair Carmichael, chairman of the Parliamentary Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, said he and his colleagues remained “deeply sceptical” about SEW’s version of events presented to MPs.

The committee has recalled Mr Hinton and the chairman of SEW, Chris Train, to provide further evidence to the committee.

Liberal Democrat MP for Tunbridge Wells Mike Martin has been calling for Mr Hinton to resign for more than a month.

Chief executive of the Consumer Council for Water, Mike Keil, said: “It will appear to many customers in Kent and Sussex that South East Water has lost its ability to provide a reliable water supply. Customers are feeling anxious and uncertain every time they turn on the tap.

“Launching this investigation sends a signal not only to South East Water but to all water companies that how you treat people during disruption matters.

“We want to see this investigation conducted swiftly as customers of South East Water are impatient for change after suffering repeated service failures, compounded by poor communication.”

Bottled water stations remain in place in Tunbridge Wells, East Grinstead and Maidstone for impacted residents and businesses, and location details can be found on SEW’s website.

On Thursday, SEW incident manager Matthew Dean said: “In total, around 8,500 properties across Kent are currently without water, and we are very sorry to all our customers who have been and continue to be affected.

“We know and understand how difficult going without water for such a long period of time is and how difficult it makes everyday life.

“We are continuing to use 26 tankers to pump water directly into our network to increase the amount of water available in the affected areas and our leak repair teams are working around the clock to fix the leaks and bursts across Kent and Sussex, with extra resources available to help carry out repairs.”