Water boss promises investment over climate change

David Hinton says climate change has increased demand for water beyond expectation

The head of South East Water said the company had been "caught on the hop" by the speed of climate change.

David Hinton, the firm's chief executive, told BBC South East greater demand than had been expected was partly to blame for recent outages.

He said lifestyle changes, with more people working from home, were also a factor.

After outages for more than a week in parts of Kent and Sussex in June 2023 the company is being investigated by the industry watchdog Ofwat over possible failures in maintaining supply.

"I think it's caught everyone on the hop" said Mr Hinton, "it's really gone way ahead of what we've predicted.

"We've had one in 40 year, one in 500 year, we had one in 200 year weather events in the same year. No-one was predicting that kind of effect."

Mr Hinton said plans have had to be modified with more investment needed.

"We've just put in a business plan to Ofwat with a considerable amount of extra resilience funding in that.

"We're looking to really get ahead of climate change. We were fine up until 2020 and resilience was good, we've just seen a big change in the weather."

South East Water is based in Snodland, Kent, and has 2.2m customers across Sussex, Kent, Surrey, Hampshire and Berkshire.

The company says its new treatment works in Aylesford will help to prevent future supply interruptions

A consultation was launched in July into increases in bills, with the company wanting a rise of £51 but Ofwat saying it should be just £18.

A final decision will be announced in December.

"Most of that gap in the funding is on resilience" said Mr Hinton, "and we've been in dialogue with Ofwat since they made that announcement.

"I really hope we can close that gap because we really do need it. I want bills to go up enough to be able to fund the investment.

"If customers really want us to invest they're happy to pay for us to invest, and those who can't pay will be supported."

South East Water is constructing a £39m treatment works on the site of a former print works in Aylesford.

Due to be completed by summer 2025, it will serve the Maidstone area and, the company said, help to prevent future supply interruptions.