South East Water in spat with watchdog after £22m fine
South East Water has entered a heated spat with the water regulator after it was hit with a £22m fine.
The water firm’s fine covers multiple supply interruptions in Kent and Sussex between the period of 2020 and 2023, effecting more than 286,000 people.
Ofwat said its investigations into the water firm found it had “failed to maintain supply-system resilience” to minimise incidents and also failed to plan to make sure it had sufficient headroom to deal with periods of high demand.
Issues left the water system “more likely to fail” during periods of difficulty such as when frozen water thawed or prolonged dry periods.
The firm is also currently under investigation for outages in the last four months following tens of thousands of households and business being left without supply across Kent and Sussex due to continuous outages since November.
South East Water ‘not taking ownership’,’ says watchdog’
“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,” Chris Walters, Ofwat’s interm chief said.
“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.”
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.”
The regulator has said South East Water had “not taken ownership” of the issues with disruptions still continuing to happen as a result.
The consultation on the Ofwat fine proposal remains open until April 13.