South East Water CEO questioned by Parliament over Tunbridge Wells water issues

KentOnline / KMTV

David Hinton, the CEO of South East Water, was questioned by a parliamentary committee, and other MPs, on the actions of the company following the water outage in Tunbridge Wells.   Nailah Mahomed reports.

Transcript

00:00You may remember at the end of November, Tunbridge Wells lost its water supply.

00:05Around 24,000 homes and businesses didn't have access to clean water

00:09due to a bad batch of treatment chemicals which led to a water outage.

00:14And yesterday, three weeks after the boil water ban was lifted,

00:18David Hinton, the CEO of Southeast Water,

00:21appeared in Parliament where he answered questions from EFRA and MPs.

00:25The response was by far and away the biggest response we've ever done.

00:30The amount of resources we put on it was by far and away the largest we've ever put...

00:33Well, it was probably the biggest failure you've ever had, is it not?

00:37In terms of customers impacted, this wasn't the biggest impact.

00:40The effects of the water crisis are still being felt in Tunbridge Wells today.

00:45Mr Hinton rated how Southeastern Water dealt with the situation an 8 out of 10

00:49and claimed that it was unavoidable and he takes ultimate responsibility for it.

00:53But what do the people of Tunbridge Wells really think?

00:56They were a bit backwards in coming forwards.

00:59I think, you know, the CEO should have got out there on TV and informed the town.

01:07He should invest quite a lot of money in the local infrastructure,

01:14in our local water supply, the mains, the reservoirs, so this doesn't happen again.

01:18They need to look at their, they need to get their systems engineers on it

01:22and assess what went wrong, do a modification to their system so it doesn't happen again.

01:31Local MP Mike Martin has even called for Mr Hinton to resign.

01:36Dr Rink, who's the Chief Drinking Water Inspector for England and Wales,

01:40said that the incident was actually known about for several months,

01:43rather than a surprise, as Dave Hinton said.

01:46It was avoidable rather than unavoidable.

01:50And DWI actually issued advice to Southeast Water in the months preceding the incident

01:55about what they needed to do.

01:57And had they followed that advice, they would have avoided this incident.

02:03In a statement, David Hinton says the priority is to improve Southeast Water

02:07and is committed to delivering the infrastructure needed.

02:10This is not the first time Tumbridge Wells has seen water outages.

02:14And now with David Hinton being held accountable,

02:17will things change?

02:19Nayla Mahamed for KMTV.

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