00:00I see that he's resigned today, so we're very happy. He's gone at last.
00:05That's the resounding message on the streets of Tunbridge Wells today as the CEO of South
00:09East Water announces his resignation. It comes after months of building pressure on the boss
00:14to leave his post. Pressure that South East Water now says is distracting from their ultimate aim
00:19of providing resilient water supply to their customers. His exit was confirmed seven days
00:26after Chris Train, the chair of South East Water, resigned in the wake of a damning select committee report.
00:32They looked at how thousands of people in the South East were left without water,
00:37some for days and some for weeks. It's a time people on the streets of Tunbridge Wells haven't
00:43forgotten about. We were out both times, so we were out for about, I can't remember precisely,
00:47but we were out for about a week in December and then two weeks in January, so we lost our
00:53water
00:53of both times. And what was your reaction to finding out that the senior management have
00:57decided to give up their posts? About time, really. I mean, they're clearly out of their depth.
01:03I think it was just a mystery why they felt that David Hinton was the best man for the job,
01:09when clearly he wasn't. And I think his just unwillingness to appear in public
01:17when we were all struggling, physically and mentally, I think was just inexcusable.
01:22And while many people here weren't keen to speak on camera, just a mention of South East Water
01:27led to anger and sighs. In March, the company was fined more than £22 million by Ofwatt for its
01:34supply failures. Mr Hinton, who was earning £400,000 a year, appeared in Parliament in April
01:40to apologise for their handling of the issues. It was something that I hadn't experienced at that level
01:45before. We were using consultants to really help us work out what our effective emergency playbook
01:52is, our crisis comms playbook is, what everyone's role in that playbook is. So that is a learning
01:59that we went through, went through the pain of getting it wrong. Do you not think your customers
02:03deserve that degree of accountability from you? And that degree of accountability is that we
02:11accept that we failed in our primary duty. A South East Water spokesperson said the board remains
02:19focused on accelerating engineering works to improve the resilience of the supply network
02:24and increasing water capacity and quality in high priority areas. Hinton is set to remain in post
02:31until the summer, in order for there to be a transition period. And while his chair at the table
02:35will soon be replaced, Alistair Carmichael, the chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
02:40committee, said South East Water is still not yet off the watch list. Chloe Brewster for KMTV in
02:48September 12th.
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