South East Water ordered to pay £30.5m penalty for supply failures
UK regulator Ofwat has imposed a £30.5m penalty on South East Water for multiple supply interruptions, customer failings, and licence breaches.
South East Water will pay £30.5m following a series of supply interruptions, customer failings, and breaches of its licence, the UK water regulator Ofwat has announced.
The redress package concludes three investigations into the supplier. It includes a previously proposed £22m fine for water supply failures between 2020 and 2023 that affected more than 286,000 people.
A second investigation was launched earlier this year after further supply interruptions in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, and Sussex between November and January, leaving up to 70,000 homes without water.
The third investigation followed the downgrading of South East Water’s credit rating by Moody’s in May, which meant the company was in breach of its licence conditions.
Ofwat will appoint an independent monitor to review South East Water’s performance improvement plan and wider turnaround efforts.
Helen Campbell, executive director for delivery at Ofwat, said the company must now focus on what matters most – its customers. She noted that these failures have caused real disruption and hardship for residents and businesses over many years, and that supply interruptions of this scale have happened far too often.
About half of the fine – £13m – will be ringfenced for fixing issues that caused the supply failures at South East Water. Another £1.5m will go towards a community fund to support areas in Kent and Sussex affected by the failures.
The ruling is the latest in a series of Ofwat investigations in the water sector, which have resulted in fines and enforcement packages worth more than £300m.
The biggest penalty was for Thames Water in May last year over wastewater failures, with the watchdog charging the company £104m for environmental breaches involving sewage spills.
