Under-fire water boss vows to improve services

The boss of water company which has been heavily criticised after supply issues caused misery for thousands said he wants to be at the forefront of changes which could help halt further disruption.

David Hinton, the chief executive of South East Water (SEW), vowed to turn around the under-fire water firm after politicians called for him to resign and for him to be denied his bonus after multiple supply issues in Kent and Sussex.

Speaking to BBC South East, he apologised to customers, and blamed "demand outstripping supply", freezing weather and Storm Gorretti.

Hinton said he was "really keen" to deliver a "resilience plan" which he described as "absolutely key" to improving services.

"Whoever is in the leadership team at South East Water - that plan still needs to get delivered," he added

"It is definitely the right plan and what's important is that we focus on delivering that plan."

In December, up to 16,000 homes went without water for almost a week, and earlier this month about 30,000 properties faced issues.

Hinton said he wanted to meet people in East Grinstead and Tunbridge Wells, two of the worst affected areas.

Hinton said: "We have been putting the plan in place over the last few years and some solutions are coming soon, including to the Maidstone area in the next few weeks and these will make a difference.

"We are also finalising plans to transfer water from the Bewl resevior to Tunbridge Wells to help supplies there."

However, Hinton could not rule out any future supply issues in the event of future storms.

Hinton welcomed the recently published white paper from the government, which sets out a standard for how many customers should rely on each water treatment works and storage facility.

But he said funding was needed to make the necessary changes.

"It is difficult to get the funding, but we are trying to get it," he said.

Hinton previously rated the response to the Tunbridge Wells water outage as "eight out of ten" when he was called before a select committee earlier this month.

However, he declined to give a score for more recent disruption, saying it was "too early", as the company was still looking into what happened.

Hinton has since been recalled to parliament to face another round of questions from select committee MPs.

He maintains he gave "full transparency" on his previous appearance.

A Drinking Water Inspectorate (DWI) report into the outage in Tunbridge Wells in November and December said SEW was "flying blind" before the disruption, and said an intervention should have happened weeks before supplies were hit.

The Environment Secretary has said Hinton should not receive a bonus after the most recent supply issues.

He was awarded £115,000 last year on top of his £400,000 salary, and his bonus is expected to more than double this year.

MPs including Mike Martin, Tom Tugenhadt and Helen Whatley have all called for him to leave his position, with Martin writing to investors of SEW and asking them to intervene.

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