Environment Secretary Emma Reynolds has spoken with the Chair of South East Water and visited the most affected town, Tunbridge Wells, following weeks of water supply disruption.
Emma Reynolds visited the town to see for herself the conditions local residents were facing, which – along with East Grinstead – has been heavily impacted for over a week.
She will also meet with Chris Train, Chair of South East Water, and has raised with Ofwat the need for the regulator to look at whether the company is operating in line with its licence conditions. According to Ofwat’s latest assessment, the company is the worst‑performing for water supply interruptions.
In addition, Water Minister Emma Hardy has met Ofwat officials to discuss urgent progress on the regulator’s ongoing investigation into South East Water’s resilience and wider performance issues at the company.
The Environment Secretary visited a bottled water station in Tunbridge Wells and heard from volunteers, residents and local business owners affected by the outage, which is currently impacting 6,500 properties. She met with local residents to talk about their experiences, handed out water bottles, and met local officials.
More than 30,000 homes across Sussex and Kent have been affected by the disruption, with some customers spending a week without water.
Water bosses must be held accountable for significant failures, and the government is making changes in the sector to ensure that this happens. We have more than doubled compensation rates for households and businesses when their water services fail and banned unfair bonuses for water bosses – with 10 bonuses blocked last year worth £4 million.
The government will also create a new single water regulator with stronger oversight of the whole industry, building on wider efforts to fix crumbling water infrastructure and secure future supplies through £104 billion of ringfenced investment.