Supply ‘too reliant’ on one asset, says South East Water boss | EUROtoday

The boss of South East Water has mentioned the corporate is simply too dependant on particular person services after a six-day provide failure affected 1000’s of individuals in Kent.

About 24,000 properties in and round Tunbridge Wells had no or low stress faucet water from 29 November till provides returned to most on 4 December. For the subsequent 9 days, residents have been instructed to boil the restored faucet water earlier than consumption.

A disinfection downside at Pembury Water Treatment Works had induced the failure however there was no proof provide grew to become contaminated, mentioned South East Water.

The water firm’s chief government, David Hinton, mentioned the agency was “just too reliant in some areas on one asset”.

Mr Hinton was chatting with the BBC earlier within the week and mentioned the corporate needs to “do more” at a separate works at Bewl Water reservoir, close to Wadhurst in East Sussex, and spend £30m on increasing output capability.

The proposal would give the corporate the flexibility to “rapidly fill the area of Tunbridge Wells, for example, as soon as we see any issue”, mentioned Mr Hinton.

He mentioned this could enable “extra resilience should any other challenges hit any other treatment works” with out additional draining the reservoir.

“It’s not only for Tunbridge Wells, it’s for the wider parts of Kent as well,” added the chief government, who has confronted calls to resign over the provision points.

South East Water was certainly one of 5 firms to contest regulator Ofwat’s newest worth controls, which already allowed it to extend a median annual invoice from £232 to £274 by 2030.

The corporations argued the 36% common worth enhance for patrons in England over the subsequent 5 years was not sufficient to ship higher infrastructure.

The Competition and Markets Authority has provisionally agreed that South East Water can enhance payments by an additional 4%, pending a remaining choice in 2026.

Mr Hinton mentioned the Bewl Water proposal was a motive why the corporate was asking the competitors regulator to permit it to boost more cash from clients.

South East Water suspects “something to do with the level” of water at its Pembury reservoir contributed to the provision failure however the agency needs to “do a full investigation”, he mentioned.

The firm launched hosepipe restrictions in July for Kent and Sussex clients after dry climate earlier in 2025.

The Drinking Water Inspectorate mentioned it was investigating the Tunbridge Wells lack of provide incident.