 The merged water company will supply 2.1 million customers |
The merger of two water companies in southern England will lead to a reorganisation of jobs and a number of office moves, bosses have said. The details of South East Water's amalgamation with Mid Kent Water are being laid out ahead of its expected finalisation later this month.
The new company will be called South East Water, with a headquarters in Kent and an enlarged testing site in Surrey.
It will supply millions of customers in Kent, Surrey, Sussex, Berks and Hants.
Managing director Paul Butler said the newly-merged firm aimed to become "a leading voice in the future of drinking water supply in the South East, to help deliver a more sustainable and efficient water supply for the region".
Customer service jobs
Its head office will relocate from Haywards Heath, West Sussex, to Snodland, Kent, with a satellite operation remaining in its place.
A water testing laboratory in Frimley Green, Surrey, will be extended.
Staff and union consultation has been carried out on 132 redundancies, but jobs are also set to be created in a new customer service centre at the Snodland headquarters.
The Competition Commission said earlier this year that it would not seek to block the merger, provided the new water company agreed to a one-off �4m reduction in customer bills in 2008/09.
Further efficiency savings of �3.1m a year are planned between 2010 and 2015.
David Bland, from the Consumer Council for Water, said consumers could "expect bills not to go up quite as fast as they might otherwise have done".
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