Watchdog to fine South East Water £22m over water supply failures

Ofwat has said it plans to fine South East Water £22 million 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.

These issues left its water system “more likely to fail” during prolonged dry periods or when frozen water thawed.

Customers were left with no tap water, unable to shower or bathe and could not flush their toilets, according to Ofwat.

Its investigation found that the company’s response to these issues was “slow and disorganised”.

It highlighted shortages of bottled water and said there were “not enough tankers or support for vulnerable customers”.

Chris Walters, interim chief executive of Ofwat, said: “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.”

South East Water is bringing legal action against Ofwat over the proposed order, and made a bid to temporarily block the regulator from publishing plans at a private hearing on Monday.

Judge Mr Justice Chamberlain said in a ruling that lawyers for South East Water said there were “compelling reasons” to prevent the publication, which may cause “irreparable” damage.

The court was also told that South East Water considered Ofwat’s decision to be legally flawed.

Rejecting the temporary bid in a judgment on Monday, Mr Justice Chamberlain said that South East Water’s case “is far from compelling”.

He continued: “In my judgment, it is far from clear that the publication of the proposed decision will cause harm that is ‘grave’ or ‘irreparable’, as alleged.

“Publication of the proposed decision triggers a right in South East Water to make further representations.”

The judge also said that even a temporary delay in publication of around four months would not be “relatively insignificant” for customers.

A South East Water spokesman said: “We recently filed for judicial review of an Ofwat draft decision and sought an injunction.

“Following a hearing, the court did not grant the interim injunction. We respect the court’s decision on this.

“We are now considering Ofwat’s draft decision and will respond via the appropriate channels, ahead of its final decision. We have no further comment at this time.”

Ofwat said the consultation on its fine proposal would remain open until April 13.

The regulator added that South East Water “has not taken ownership of these issues”, with subsequent disruptions still happening too regularly as a result.

In recent months, tens of thousands of households and business were left without supply across Kent and Sussex due to repeated outages since November.

Tunbridge Wells 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.

In January, Ofwat said South East Water was under investigation in relation to the fresh problems.