South East Water

The present company came into existence in December 2007 by a merger of and an earlier separate company with the name of South East Water, thus uniting two water companies in the South East of England. Other companies that had earlier been merged into the current company included , the , the , the (itself incorporating the ), the , the (formerly the Mid-Wessex Water Company; itself incorporating the , the Frimley and Farnborough District Water Company, the , the , the , the , and the ), and the . In 2021-2022, the company's chief executive, David Hinton, received a base salary (not including bonus, pension contributions and other benefits) of £271,620. The CFO received a base salary of £222,503 over the same period. South East Water was one of eleven water providers fined by the water regulator for England and Wales, Ofwat, in October 2022. South East Water’s fine was £3.2 million. ==Water supply issues==

As of 21 December 2022, South East Water continued to receive criticism, including from MPs, as a result of widespread and long-lasting water outages affecting thousands of homes and businesses across its network. Bottled water stations were set up at several sites, but supplies quickly ran low. Various sites were forced to unexpectedly close at short notice to restock or as they became overwhelmed. The Guardian reported on 21 December 2022 that South East Water had admitted that it couldn’t guarantee that all customers would have their water supply restored by Christmas Day. Speaking to Kent Live, Greg Clark, MP for Tunbridge Wells and former Cabinet Minister, said: Mr Clark later described the leadership of South East Water as "deficient" in a crisis situation A BBC article described how elderly residents - many of whom did not have social media - were “beginning to panic and worry about how they are going to get water.” MP Nus Ghani described the situation as “groundhog day” and urged South East Water to urgently remedy the situation. On 26 June 2023 the company introduced a hosepipe ban across the area, blaming increased domestic demand through more people working at home. This was despite reservoirs in the region being almost full, following a wet winter and spring. In June 2025, the company received a £200 million cash injection from its owners to improve its financial resilience. In late November 2025, a major supply failure at the Pembury water treatment works (near Tunbridge Wells, Kent) left tens of thousands of customers of South East Water without running water. The plant was shut down on the evening of 29 November after the company admitted a “bad” or “chemical” batch of coagulant chemicals had contaminated the treatment process. In early January 2026, the company reported a burst water main in the Tunbridge Wells area that left a further 24,000 properties without water supply. This was reported in addition to the contamination incident that occurred in November 2025, affecting the same supply area. In response, the chair of South East Water, Chris Train, resigned with immediate effect. ==References==