South East Water has just announced that David Hinton has today resigned as Chief Executive Officer of the company.

A statement issued by South East Water this morning says:

“Mr Hinton has decided to step down as he feels his position has become an increasing distraction from South East Water’s most important priority, which is to deliver a resilient water supply for its customers.”

He will remain in post as CEO to allow an orderly transition over the summer period and continued momentum of the transformation plan while the Board undertakes the process of finding a replacement. Further details will be announced in due course.

The Board says it remains focused on accelerating targeted engineering works and making operational changes to improve the resilience of the supply network, increase water capacity and quality in high priority areas as part of a comprehensive, company-wide transformation plan.

Lisa Clement, Interim Independent Non-Executive Chair, commented:

“The Board acknowledges and thanks Dave for his many years of loyal dedication and service to South East Water."

Last week saw the resignation of Chris Train as Chair of South East Water.

The resignations follow the publication of a highly critical report on 1st May by MPs on the cross-party House of Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee which declared they had “no confidence" in the leadership team to turn the failing company around.

Responding to the news that David Hinton has resigned, EFRA Committee Chair Alistair Carmichael MP commented this morning:

“David Hinton has made the right decision for the long-term good of South East Water’s customers and the company. It is now up to its interim Chair and board members to recruit a new Chief Executive and get them in place as soon as possible. As we have seen over the last eight years, this is a company that has never been far from serious failure, so competent leadership is urgently needed. The company must ensure it learns from the investigation by the Drinking Water Inspectorate so that totally avoidable incidents like the two-week Tunbridge Wells outage of last year are never repeated. The EFRA Committee will be keeping South East Water within its sights.”