THE ongoing water crisis affecting tens of thousands of households across Sussex and Kent was thrust into the national spotlight today (14 January) after being raised during Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons.
Leader of the Liberal Democrats, Ed Davey, challenged Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer over repeated failures by South East Water, accusing the company of leaving entire communities without basic supplies for days at a time.
Speaking in the Commons, Mr Davey said: “Last month, I asked the Prime Minister to get a grip of South East Water which left thousands of people in Royal Tunbridge Wells without water. Now it has happened again, not only in Tunbridge Wells, but in East Grinstead, Burgess Hill, Haywards Heath, and other parts of Kent and Sussex.
“Families, schools, care homes and businesses without any water since Saturday, and the water company bosses involved now stand accused of misleading Parliament over their failures. South East Water keeps failing its customers over and over again, so will the Government immediately strip them of their licence?”
In response, Sir Keir Starmer acknowledged the severity of the situation. He replied: “The situation is clearly unacceptable and he will want to know that Ministers have chaired daily emergency meetings to hold the company to account to deliver on the change that’s urgently needed at the moment in all the areas that he mentioned.
“We’ve also doubled the compensation rates for individuals and businesses, and we’re absolutely clear that the company must urgently invest in infrastructure. We will publish the water white paper in due course, but we are holding these daily meetings to hold this company to account.”
The political pressure comes amid growing public anger over repeated supply failures. Over the past week, tens of thousands of customers across Sussex and Kent have experienced no water or severely reduced pressure, with some areas left without bottled water stations for more than two days.
There have also been claims that vulnerable customers registered on South East Water’s priority services register were not supplied with emergency water in some towns.
Calls for accountability have intensified, with Eastbourne MP Josh Babarinde among those demanding the resignation of South East Water’s Chief Executive, David Hinton.
Mr Babarinde said: “South East Water has failed our town and our region. This is the fourth major water outage since I became Eastbourne’s MP. This latest incident is just another appalling failure to add to a growing list on hosepipe bans, water outages and droughts.”
As of today, some customers in Maidstone, East Grinstead and Royal Tunbridge Wells remain without a full water supply, with bottled water stations still operating in affected areas.
In a statement issued on Wednesday, South East Water apologised to customers and said progress was being made, though thousands remain affected.
The company said: “We are very sorry to everyone who continues to experience no water or low pressure following the recent outages. We know and understand how difficult going without water for such a long period of time is and how difficult it makes everyday life.
“Water supplies are continuing to return in Kent and Sussex following the recent cold weather and subsequent breakout of leaks and bursts which resulted in our drinking water storage tanks running very low. Supplies to 8,000 properties have now been restored across the two counties and our teams are working hard to return drinking water to the remaining 17,000.”
