Image description: Water streaming out of a silver tap. Image by Imani on Unsplash.

The Chief Executive of South East Water (SEW), David Hinton, appeared before Parliament’s Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (EFRA) Committee in Westminster to face questioning over the utility’s handling of the Tunbridge Wells water outage, which left thousands of homes and businesses without a clean water supply, or under a boil water notice, between 29 November and 12 December.

The outage forced schools and businesses to close, with one hotel owner reporting £30,000 in losses and a pub losing over £3,000 within days and represented the second major Tunbridge Wells outage in three years.

South East Water CEO blamed “unexpected failure”

SEW chief executive David Hinton apologised and admitted the crisis, that left some 24,000 properties in Kent without water, was a “failure”.

Hinton told MPs that December’s outage happened because a “coagulant stopped performing as it should” at the treatment works, which could have potentially compromised disinfection. He claimed SEW “didn’t know that was the issue initially… That’s why it appeared like the story was changed.” A second coagulant was brought in that solved the problem, but the cause of the issue is still unknown.

One theory Hinton put forward was the hot summer lowered levels in its reservoir. He attributed the outage to unforeseen changes in raw water quality linked to climate change impacts, stating “the actual issue that caused the event was a change in the raw water chemistry which we’ve not seen in 20 years.” He emphasised that demand had grown very close to supply capacity and blamed the crisis on Tunbridge Wells relying on a single supply source.

Water outage could have been prevented says Drinking Water Inspectorate

Marcus Rink, the chief inspector at the Drinking Water Inspectorate (DWI), told MPs at a select committee hearing that the “water quality issue” was foreseen weeks before it happened and could have been stopped.

Rink said the problem began almost three weeks before the company declared the emergency and told the EFRA committee it “shouldn’t have been a surprise” to SEW. He said Pembury Water Treatment Works had been “operating suboptimally” for months before the outage, with the company failing to do proper testing, which had been requested by the regulator, and that it also failed to install a filter that would stop dangerous heavy metals from entering the water supply. The BBC reports that SEW was repeatedly criticised during the crisis for its lack of clear communication, with the deadline for restoring supplies extended multiple times.

Rink revealed the plant had no electronic data collection for coagulation, relying instead on fixed manual dosing. He noted the process scientist responsible for the site was unavailable due to illness when problems began, which his team estimates started on 9 November – three weeks before the 29 November shutdown.

The Chief Inspector also revealed SEW initially refused to provide relevant information to investigators, claiming inspectors “didn’t have the legislative power for it.” The company has since provided the necessary documentation. Rink expressed frustration that current legislation provides no clear pathway to sanction the company.

SEW Chairman warned company executives may have misled parliament

South East Water’s chairman has been warned that company executives may have misled Parliament during their testimony to parliament. EFRA Committee Chair Alistair Carmichael has written to South East Water Chair Chris Train highlighting “significant discrepancies” between evidence given by CEO David Hinton and testimony from the Drinking Water Inspectorate’s Chief Inspector Marcus Rink during a 6 January hearing.

The letter warns that providing inaccurate or misleading information to a select committee could constitute contempt of Parliament if not promptly corrected. South East Water must respond by 12 January.