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South East Water could have its licence revoked by the industry watchdog, as residents still without supply say they have been told some services won’t be open until next week.
Ofwat said it had launched a probe into whether the supplier had breached its licence condition by failing to comply with customer service obligations amid growing calls for the SEW chief executive David Hinton to resign.
If the water company is found to have not met its obligations, it could be the first to have its licence revoked due to a breach of the customer-focused element of the licence condition.
Since November, tens of thousands of households and businesses across Kent and Sussex have faced water supply issues. The latest incident has seen thousands of properties 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.
Residents say they have received mixed information, with some claiming they have been told schools will now not open until Monday, while others have been told the issue will be resolved by Friday.
“It’s been unsettling for my daughter, who has already missed a day of school, and we now know that her school be closed from this afternoon until Monday, and to look after I’ve had to take time off work,” one local told BBC’s Today programme.
“It’s been over a week now of intermittent supply, with the water coming on for just a few short hours, but at a very low pressure.
“So it was sort of barely possible even to have a shower or that sort of thing, even when it was on most evenings, I’ve been going out to collect some water from the centre at the rugby club. It did run out one evening, so we were unable to go.”
A number of MPs have called for Mr Hinton to step down in light of the failures, as health secretary Wes Streeting said some water bosses seem “like they’re working from home”.
“Some of them, you talk to them, they’re coming to you on the screen with their sleeves rolled up – on site surrounded by bottles they’re dishing out themselves,” he said.
“There are others who, it’s like they’re working from home – so they do need to be held to account.”
He added: “It’s not right that people are left without water. We understand there are sometimes challenges, especially in very cold weather, where pipes burst, but there needs to be more rapid response to support families.”
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.
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 system, 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.”
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.
SEW boss Mr Hinton was grilled by MPs last week for his company’s handling of the November and December supply failure.
On Tuesday, Alistair Carmichael, chair 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 chair of SEW, Chris Train, to provide further evidence to the committee.
Mr Carmichael said the firm appears “determined to find anyone else to blame but themselves”.
“We expect the chair and chief executive to return to the committee in the near future to face further scrutiny about those events, as well as their performance during this latest fiasco,” he said.
A number of MPs have been calling for Mr Hinton to step down, including Liberal Democrat MP for Tunbridge Wells Mike Martin, who has been calling for his resignation for more than a month.
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.
The Independent has contacted South East Water for a comment.
