South East Water executives have been summoned to appear before MPs again following a water outage before Christmas and ongoing supply failures affecting thousands of customers. Alistair Carmichael, chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Efra) committee, said he and colleagues remained 'deeply sceptical' about the company's account of an outage that hit 24,000 properties in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, last month.
The committee will seek a further hearing with chief executive David Hinton and chair Chris Train after Train wrote to MPs disputing evidence from the Drinking Water Inspectorate (DWI) on the incident. Carmichael criticised the company's announcement of an independent review into the supply failure, questioning its independence and accusing the firm of 'buying time'.
Meanwhile, 25,000 properties remain affected by the latest outages across Kent and Sussex, which South East Water has blamed on Storm Goretti causing burst pipes and power cuts. Many residents are now into a fourth day without water, with outages starting last Friday night.
Carmichael stated: 'Members of the press and public would be forgiven for seeing Mr Train’s announcement of a further review of the Pembury failure as an attempt to buy themselves time.' He added that the committee would gather further evidence and allow the current outage to pass before holding another session with the DWI and company bosses.
On Tuesday, supplies were restored to Loose in Maidstone, Blean near Canterbury, Headcorn, West Kingsdown, and parts of Tunbridge Wells. South East Water said drinking water to 16,500 properties in East Grinstead, West Sussex, should be restored later that afternoon. Ofwat has expressed concern and will review evidence to decide if the company met legal obligations.
South East Water incident manager Matthew Dean said the company was 'working around the clock' to fix leaks and bursts, and was delivering bottled water to priority customers and supporting hospitals and care homes. Bottled water stations remain in Tunbridge Wells, East Grinstead, and Maidstone.
