Ofwat Chief Executive David Black has written to South East Water to request an “urgent meeting” with the water company’s Board and himself and the Chair of Ofwat Iain Coucher, following the “recent and re-occurring supply interruptions” experienced by South East Water customers.

Writing to David Hinton, Chief Executive at South East Water, referred to the freeze thaw event in December 2022 which saw 286,000 properties impacted and the recent event during the week of 12 June 2023 which saw 6,000 properties experience supply interruptions, low pressure, or being off supply and a number of schools which were forced to close.

As a result of the June 2023 incident, the water company announced a hosepipe ban on 16 June which came into effect yesterday with the aim of reducing increased demand.

“Resilience of supplies well below what would be expected from an essential service provider.. transformative change is required"

Expressing his concern that the most recent event has occurred in the first spell of hot weather this year, and that the company experienced similar supply interruptions due to peak demand in July 2022, David Black says:

“This suggests that the resilience of supplies is well below what would be expected from an essential service provider and that transformative change is required at South East Water to ensure customers receive the levels of service they deserve.

“These incidents also took place in the context of South East Water being one of the sector's worst performers with respect to supply interruptions for the last two reporting years. We have received a number of complaints from customers recently affected by your supply interruptions who did not receive adequate response from your company during the incident, or after raising concerns.”

He went on to say that Ofwat wants to understand what further steps the water company is taking to remedy the issues for customers and to mitigate the risks of similar issues arising in future.

Ofwat now intends to conduct customer research into the most recent water supply incident, together with CCW, – so that both organisations can hear directly from customers about their experience.

The water sector regulator now urgently wants to discuss South East Water’s “recent and underlying performance problems”, including:

• the significant impacts these have had on customers;
• the utility’s understanding of their underlying causes;
• and what actions South East Water is taking to address this and improve reliability of service to customers for the future.

Black concludes the letter by saying:

“This will inform our decisions on whether there is further action Ofwat needs to take in relation to your company's performance on these issues, including but not limited to enforcement action.”