South East Water has been fined £22m for repeated supply failures, watchdog Ofwat has said.
The fine relates to the water company’s supply interruptions in Kent and Sussex between 2020 and 2023, which affected more than 286,000 people. It is also under investigation for outages over the last four months.
Ofwat said the fine “reflects the severity of the issues”. A consultation is open to the public and shareholders until 13 April, before the watchdog confirms its final decision.
Chris Walters, interim CEO at Ofwat, said: “South East Water’s significant failings caused major disruption and had a huge impact on thousands of its customers.
“Not only did the company fail in its duty to provide a water supply to meet the demands of its customers, but it also fell short when it came to providing support for customers who lost their supply. They must do better.
“This investigation gets to the heart of the company’s supply resilience problems. We want to see South East Water take more responsibility and get on with fixing things for its customers.”
A spokesperson for South East Water said that the company sought an injunction, and that it is “now considering Ofwat’s draft decision and will respond via the appropriate channels, ahead of its final decision”.
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In a statement, Ofwat said an investigation found that South East Water “failed to plan sufficiently, learn from incidents and conduct root cause analysis to maintain resilience within its water supply system, and was therefore unable to cope during periods of high demand or extreme weather”.
It added that the company “failed to maintain key infrastructure such as service reservoirs, boreholes and major pipes” which the watchdog said “left the system more likely to fail during prolonged dry periods or freeze thaw events”.
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“As a result of the disruptions, customers had no tap water, were unable to shower or bathe, and unable to flush their toilets, which caused immense stress and anxiety,” Ofwat said.
“Ofwat’s investigation found that the company’s response was slow and disorganised, with shortages of bottled water and not enough tankers or support for vulnerable customers.
“It also failed to learn lessons from previous incidents, including the Beast from the East in 2018.”
A report from Ofwat at the time of the snowstorm found that households and businesses were badly let down by some water firms.
More than 200,000 customers in England and Wales left without supplies for more than four hours, while over 60,000 customers did not have a water supply for more than 12 hours.
Investigation into 2025 outages ongoing
It comes as Ofwat launched an investigation into the water company after repeated outages between November and January left tens of thousands of households and businesses across Kent and Sussex without drinking water.
Sky News City editor Mark Kleinman also reported last month that a community action group in Tunbridge Wells demanded the “immediate” sacking of South East Water’s chief executive after weeks of outages.
Read more: The group fighting back amid Kent’s ‘water limbo’
In May last year, Thames Water was fined a record £122.7m for breaches of its rules over sewage discharges and dividend payments.
Following Ofwat’s announcement on Thursday, a South East Water spokesperson said: “We recently filed for judicial review of an Ofwat draft decision and sought an injunction. Following a hearing, the court did not grant the interim injunction. We respect the court’s decision on this.
“We are now considering Ofwat’s draft decision and will respond via the appropriate channels, ahead of its final decision. We have no further comment at this time.”
