KENT — South East Water failed to adequately communicate with customers during winter outages that left tens of thousands of people in Kent and Sussex without water, according to a report by the Consumer Council for Water (CCW). The regulator identified communication as the company’s greatest failing during the crisis, with fewer than one in 10 affected customers expressing satisfaction with South East Water’s handling of the situation.
In November and December, approximately 24,000 customers in the Tunbridge Wells area lost water supply or pressure due to a water quality failure at the Pembury water treatment works. A larger disruption followed in January of this year, affecting about 69,000 properties with shortages and low pressure. Mike Keil, the chief executive of the Consumer Council for Water, said: “Our research lays bare the scale of disruption inflicted on the lives of tens of thousands of South East Water customers last winter.” He added: “People understand that things can sometimes go wrong with their water and sewerage services, but they expect their water company to minimise the impact – not make it worse.”
Keil stated that the most damaging legacy of the outages was the loss of confidence among some customers in the safety and reliability of their drinking water. He said: “With the right handling, companies can build trust during challenging incidents, but when the response falls short, it can make a bad situation even more difficult.”
Customer feedback gathered by CCW showed a communication breakdown. One customer said: “You suddenly realise how much you rely on water for everything.” Another remarked: “If we had known it would be several days, I’d have planned things very differently. I was starting to think if it goes on much longer then I just have to move out because this is not an option for me to live here.” A third customer noted: “I think the messaging from the very beginning was very confusing and then coupled with the constant ‘it’ll be back later today, back tomorrow morning, back tomorrow evening’. We weren’t fed accurate information.” About half of customers in vulnerable circumstances who were registered for priority services reported they did not receive the support they expected during the outages, according to the report.