Group 'demands answers' for repeated water issues

A community group in Kent is hosting a meeting saying it "demands answers" from South East Water (SEW) and regulators about repeated supply issues in the area.

In December, thousands of homes across Kent and East Sussex were without water for days , and earlier in January about 30,000 properties faced issues.

Tunbridge Wells-based Dry Wells Action is hosting the meeting later and has invited SEW, the water minister, and water regulators.

The group's founder, Jonathan Hawker, said: "After all that [Tunbridge Wells] has been through because of the failures in our water supply, this community deserves to hear from the company itself and from those whose duty it is to hold SEW to account."

The group said it wanted to know why some enforcement action had not been taken against SEW and what the community should do to ensure it was never again left unable to "wash or flush toilets for days at a time".

Hawker said: "Not attending and speaking to people who've been so badly let down would in itself send a message of abject contempt for a community these organisations are meant to serve.

"So we really hope they take time to attend and participate in a constructive discussion about what went wrong, what we can learn from this, and how we can work together to ensure it doesn't happen again."

SEW's customer service director, Tanya Sephton, said the company was investigating the issues the town faced in January.

"At this stage it is too soon for us to provide confirmed details as to what went wrong, as well as our commitments, learnings and changes we'll make to prevent anything like this happening again," she said.

"We are fully committed to hearing from the Tunbridge Wells community and will hold a public meeting in the future to answer questions and discuss the points above once investigations have concluded."

During the issues earlier in January, Ofwat launched an investigation into whether SEW provided high standards of customer service and support.

SEW had already been subjected to two separate investigations by Ofwat and the Drinking Water Inspectorate over earlier supply disruptions.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said the water supply issues were "entirely unacceptable" and that "water bosses must be held accountable".

Helen Brown, director of consumer relations at the Consumer Council for Water (CCW), said: "The disruption has been compounded at times by poor communication and it's one of the reasons we called for the regulator to examine whether the company has complied with its customer-focused licence condition."

Brown added that the CCW would be "ramping up" its efforts to "give customers a voice" and would be carrying out in-depth research of customers' experiences.

In January, the government said it was planning to create a new regulator by "abolishing Ofwat and bringing together the relevant water system functions from the existing regulators - Ofwat, the Drinking Water Inspectorate, Environment Agency, and Natural England - into one new body".

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