"Like many people, I have zero confidence in SEW. Usually there is a bond of trust between customers and the supplier of a necessity for life, and that is what water is. Without it we are unable to survive. That bond of trust has been broken.”
That was what one you said in my summer water survey. What damning indictment of South East Water.
Someone else said in my survey that,
"Water supply disruption now seems to be part of everyday life.”
This has got to change.
Thank you to everyone who responded to my survey. I collated your responses and took them to John Halsall, the new Chief Executive of South East Water. He has a clear picture now of the anger about South East Water in my constituency, and all the things that have gone wrong.
We discussed the biggest concerns – obviously, the lack of water and unreliable supply, then the poor response during outages with long distances to pick up water, inaccurate or non-existent communications, failure to get water to vulnerable priority residents and farmers or residents with livestock, and lack of compensation.
John Halsall acknowledged the failures of the past and emphasised the effort he is making to turn things around. That's both to improve resilience so we get fewer outages, and for there to be a better response if that does happen. They are installing batteries at pumping stations so power outages are less likely to lead to shortages in supply, for instance. And priority customers will all get water deliveries unless they opt-out of receiving it, rather than the current system which requires an opt-in.
For businesses, he said South East Water is putting together a scheme for small businesses to make compensation available for extraordinary outages and liaising directly with businesses to help them improve resilience. One example; an injection point has already been installed for businesses near Dargate so tankered water can be supplied into their pipes in the event of another outage.
For livestock owners, I was horrified by the attitude of the previous leadership of SEW. They denied any responsibility for supply of water for animals. Desperate livestock owners contacted me worried sick.
A few weeks ago I convened a meeting between livestock owners and South East Water. They have now set up a livestock register, and have committed to supply anyone with 6 or more animals with emergency water. I am pushing them to bring that number down. You can register your livestock here:
All in all, this is a welcome change in approach. There is a lot of work for them to do to fix the problems with our water network. I will be keeping up the pressure. If there are outages, they need to do better on emergency supplies. And fundamentally, we need a reliable water supply.
See below for more information on the survey responses:
How you describe South East Water overall
Of the people who took part in my survey 930 had lost water while 470 had not. The majority of you described South East Water as ‘poor’ largely on account of how they communicated with you during the outages. You said they either seemed like they did not care or tried to shift the blame.
You also reported receiving severely delayed compensation or no compensation at all – with some households experiencing burst pipes and not being compensated for this either.
You told me you are being billed up to double what you should be, receive threatening letters in error from South East Water and experience ongoing issues water pressure, chalky water and increased limescale.
Your experience getting bottled water
You said you had to buy large quantities of water due to inadequate volumes of water being dropped off at water stations, or home drop-offs being later than expected. Many of you found the locations of water stations inconvenient, sparse and illogical – sometimes taking up to an hour to get to them. For those of you who did receive bottled water you said deliveries sometimes went to the wrong locations.
One of you said:
"Terrible communication, failing to provide updates within the timeframe they themselves provided, running out of bottled water at stations, huge queues for hours, sporadic locations rather than using villages halls etc.”
How you rated South East Water’s communication
Many of you reported being left in the dark about what was going on only knowing about outages from your local councillors.
For those of you who did get emails you said they were often slow and out of date. Some of you described the quality of information poor with the map feature ‘useless’ and by the time you managed to get to the water stations after severely delayed emails they had run out.
Some of you contacted South East Water about compensation but never received a response and others tried to call them, but they never picked up the phone.
One of you added:
“The condescending messages telling us that effectively it is our fault for using too much water are an insult. Especially when we see the reports of the water that is wasted daily.”
Your experience on the priority list
Many of you on the priority list did receive water, but some of you received it up to three days later than you were told it would arrive. Many of you still had to buy your own bottled water, and for those of you who are elderly, disabled or unable to drive you were dependent on others to get it for you.
Some of you said you got bottled water during the first outage but not the second because you were removed from the list without any notification from South East Water.
One of you told me:
“My husband and I are elderly and I have chronic kidney disease and [am] borderline for dialysis. We have been on the Priority List for some time but received no water.”
Your main worries about future outages
