Calls for the £500,000-a-year boss of South East Water to resign intensified on Wednesday as thousands of homes were left without drinking water for the fifth day in a row.
The firm could face being stripped of its licence as the Prime Minister said ministers had chaired daily emergency meetings to ‘hold the company to account’ over the ongoing crisis.
Sir Keir Starmer told Prime Minister’s Questions that it was ‘clearly totally unacceptable’ that 17,000 homes across Kent and Sussex were still without sufficient water supplies.
It comes as Environment Secretary Emma Reynolds revealed she is taking the unusual step of asking water regulator Ofwat to review if the firm is operating within its licence conditions
On Wednesaday, her department said: ‘Water bosses must be held accountable for significant failures, and the government is making changes in the sector to ensure that this happens.’
The debacle saw some 30,000 properties facing water outages over the weekend, forcing scores of schools, libraries and cash-strapped local businesses to close.
Those in Tunbridge Wells, East Grinstead, Maidstone, Whitstable, Canterbury, and surrounding towns were without water, faced low pressure or had intermittent supplies for days.
Residents have been unable to flush toilets, wash dishes or shower while hospitals have had to hold appointments virtually and care homes forced to wash residents with bottled water.
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The latest crisis comes just days after embattled SEW boss David Hinton was hauled in front of MPs for a grilling over his firm’s handling over last month’s failings
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Bottled water stations were set up across Kent and Sussex where upto 1,000 cars queued each hour to get their hands on supplies
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The firm has launched its ‘largest ever operation’ this evening to deliver bottled water to the most vulnerable through the night and into Thursday morning
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The firm has now launched its ‘largest ever operation’ to deliver bottled water to the most vulnerable through the night while water stations saw queues of around 1,000 cars each hour.
South East Water (SEW) has blamed its latest supply outage on cold weather and Storm Goretti with burst pipes and power cuts leaving water storages running low.
It is the latest in a slew of failures from the firm with another embarrassing incident in December affecting some 24,000 properties in Tunbridge Wells for almost two weeks.
The latest crisis comes just days after embattled boss Mr Hinton was hauled in front of MPs for a grilling over SEW’s handling over last month’s failings.
Regulator Ofwat, which has said the firm is the worst‑performing for supply interruptions, has said it is investigating the incidents and considering ‘further action’.
It comes as MPs, councillors and exasperated residents called for the well-remunerated boss Mr Hinton to be sacked.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said: ‘Dave Hinton has presided over a culture of failure at South East Water for too long. It’s time he took responsibility and resigned.’
While Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey called for SEW to be stripped of its licence for ‘failing its customers over and over again’.
The water firm CEO on £115,000 bonus a year
South East Water boss David Hinton enjoyed a generous 30 per cent pay rise last year, taking his already hefty salary to £400,000.
The married father-of-two, 58, also enjoys an annual performance related bonus of up to £115,000 as well a car benefits and a generous pension package.
He has refused to say whether he would forgo the bonus this year despite the firm’s slew of embarrassing failures under his leadership.
Despite being at the helm of the company, Mr Hinton bizarrely refused to appear in public or speak to the media during another widespread outage in December affected some 24,000 properties in Tunbridge Wells for almost two weeks.
Politicians accused him of being missing in action during SEW’s last outage as it was 20 days before he gave his first interview regarding the crisis stating, he would not resign.
While his home’s water is supplied by SEW, his property in Farnham, Surrey -which is worth just under £1m – is not believed to have been affected by the string of outages.
Mike Martin, Lib Dem MP for Tunbridge Wells, who has repeatedly called for Mr Hinton’s resignation, said the government ‘needs to grow a pair, and call for him to go’.
Mr Martin said it was a ‘shambles’ adding he and his constitutes were ‘absolutely livid’.
His calls were backed by Kent County Council, leader Linden Kemkaran who wrote to SEW’s board demanding Mr Hinton is fired after declaring a major incident in her county this week.
Despite the mounting calls, Mr Hinton who enjoys a base salary of £400,000 and yearly bonus of up to £115,000, appears intent on staying at the helm of the firm.
He ‘remains committed to resolving the immediate issues facing customers in both Kent and Sussex, whilst continuing to seek to obtain the investment to deliver the much-needed improvements in resilience to the South East Water network, detailed in the company’s Business Plan,’ a South East Water spokesperson when asked about calls for resignation.
Water supplies have been restored to 16,000 properties across the two counties but thousands are still affected with East Grinstead and Tunbridge Wells the worst hit.
The firm’s incident manager Matthew Dean admitted that 6,500 properties in Tunbridge Wells that had systems restored previously lost supplies again on Wednesday.
He said his team were using 26 tankers to pump water into the network while leak repair teams were working around the clock to fix the bursts.
Mr Dean added: ‘We are also supporting hospitals with tankers and providing bottled water for care homes, schools, medical care providers and to support livestock.’
Public anger has been mounting with many complaining there has been a lack of communication from SEW.
George Sutherland. who works for a roofing company in East Grinstead, said people were now falling ill after not being able to practice basic hygiene for days.
‘They did not have water in the office for four days. You can’t wash your hands, use the bathroom,’ he said.
‘Everything is dirty, you can’t wash up…People in the office haven’t been able to shower for a week. Everybody is on edge.’
He added: ‘Some people haven’t been able to come into work, some people have upset stomachs because of it. It’s massively inconvenient in every aspect.
Mains water also stopped at Stildon care home in East Grinstead over the weekend where a member of staff said vulnerable people had to be cleaned with bottle water.
The care worker said: ‘Water has come back, but very low pressure. We are a care home and it’s been going on since Saturday and only came back today (Weds), but really very low pressure.
‘It has been very difficult because we are a care home and need to wash our residents.
‘We received bottled water every day, so we have been able to do it but it’s been very difficult.’
Alistair Carmichael, chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, suggested Mr Hinton and chairman Chris Train would soon be recalled to face MPs for further questioning.
Earlier in the week he said the committee remained ‘deeply sceptical’ about SEW’s version of events regarding last month’s failings presented to MPs last week.
