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South East Water is to be fined £22m for repeated supply failures, watchdog Ofwat has said.
The fine relates to the water company’s supply interruptions in Kent and Sussex between 2020 and 2023, which affected more than 286,000 people. It is also under investigation for outages over the last four months.
Ofwat said the fine “reflects the severity of the issues”. A consultation is open to the public and shareholders until 13 April, before the watchdog confirms its final decision.
Chris Walters, interim CEO at Ofwat, said: “South East Water’s significant failings caused major disruption and had a huge impact on thousands of its customers.
“Not only did the company fail in its duty to provide a water supply to meet the demands of its customers, but it also fell short when it came to providing support for customers who lost their supply. They must do better.
“This investigation gets to the heart of the company’s supply resilience problems. We want to see South East Water take more responsibility and get on with fixing things for its customers.”
A spokesperson for South East Water said the company sought an injunction, and that it is “now considering Ofwat’s draft decision and will respond via the appropriate channels, ahead of its final decision”.
SEW ‘failed’ to learn from Beast from the East
In a statement, Ofwat said an investigation found that South East Water “failed to plan sufficiently, learn from incidents and conduct root cause analysis to maintain resilience within its water supply system, and was therefore unable to cope during periods of high demand or extreme weather”.
It added that the company “failed…
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