South East Water boss quits after supply failures

The chief executive of a water company that was heavily criticised after severe supply issues caused misery for tens of thousands of people over winter has resigned.

South East Water said David Hinton had decided to step down but would remain in post "to allow an orderly transition over the summer period".

"He feels his position has become an increasing distraction from South East Water's most important priority, which is to deliver a resilient water supply for its customers," the company said.

Several MPs had called for Hinton to go after 24,000 properties in Kent and Sussex lost water or had low pressure in November and December, and just weeks later up to 30,000 were hit with more issues.

His exit was confirmed seven days after Chris Train, the chair of South East Water, resigned in the wake of a damning select committee report into the issues.

Interim chair Lisa Clement said: "The board acknowledges and thanks Dave for his many years of loyal dedication and service to South East Water."

The BBC has been told Hinton will not be talking to the media on Friday and the decision he would resign was taken the day before the announcement.

Environment Secretary Emma Reynolds welcomed the resignation.

"This must mark the beginning of positive change at South East Water, where customers' needs are prioritised and there is a stop to supply outages," she said.

Mike Martin, the MP for Tunbridge Wells, said: "From South East Water's point of view it's a good day to bury bad news with the results of the local elections.

"It's good that Dave Hinton has done the right thing and resigned."

Martin told BBC Radio Kent it was "extremely important that we get new leadership in place". He also said he wanted the next chair and chief executive to be outside hires.

East Grinstead and Uckfield MP Mims Davies called for a quick handover and a "feeling of change ASAP".

"These are beleaguered customers and fed up businesses, and they're all worried about what may come later this spring and into the summer," she told BBC Radio Sussex.

"It's always difficult when someone has to take the rap and step down but in my view there was a fundamental lack of confidence that my constituents had in him."

Helen Whately, the MP for Faversham and Mid Kent, said she was "frustrated that it took so long" for Hinton to resign and that "nobody" had confidence in bosses "getting a grip of the situation".

Alistair Carmichael MP, who chairs the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, said the resignation was "obviously the right thing for him to have done" but added: "I don't think that South East Water is yet off the watchlist."

"This is a company that as far as I can see hasn't started yet the necessary process of turning things around," he said.

The committee's highly critical report, published on 1 May, accused the water company of poor leadership, weak governance and a culture where nobody was held accountable.

Most of Tunbridge Wells and some surrounding areas experienced low pressure or no tap water at all between 29 November and 4 December.

South East Water attributed this to a disinfection problem at Pembury Water Treatment Works.

For the following nine days, residents were told to boil the restored tap water before consumption.

Part of the town was affected again in January - along with areas such as East Grinstead, Maidstone, and Canterbury – and the company blamed this outage on Storm Goretti and cold weather.

The regulator Ofwat is investigating South East Water over the incidents and is consulting on a £22m fine for separate supply disruptions between 2020 and 2023.

The Drinking Water Inspectorate is also investigating the company, which serves customers in Kent, Sussex, Surrey, Hampshire and Berkshire.

It's previously reported the November incident "foreseeable and preventable", and blamed "longstanding weaknesses" in management, monitoring, maintenance and organisational preparedness at South East Water.

The firm has said it had begun engineering works and operational changes in the wake of the recent incidents.

Tunbridge Wells butcher Richard Hards said it was "about time people take responsibility".

He said he had to shut for about a week in November and lost thousands of pounds in revenue.

"I would like probably someone to take responsibility", he told the BBC, adding that South East Water bosses should "put the profit back into the company".

Alex Green, leader of Tunbridge Wells Business Improvement District, called for new leadership to ensure "this just doesn't happen again".

Care home manager Jason Denny said he was "not clear at the moment" how systemic water problems would be addressed.

His home had more than 30 residents when it was first hit by water supply issues, leaving them to use 2,000 bottles of water a day.

He said it took "a couple of days" to access bottled supply from South East Water.

Vulnerable people were "disproportionately affected", he added.

Murat Askin, who owns a cafe and a bar in Tunbridge Wells, said that during the outages people were "left without basic essentials for days", which was "simply unacceptable".

"I'm very happy to hear David Hinton has finally resigned," he said. "This sends a message that residents now want action, not just apologies."

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