00:00Tens of millions of pounds in losses exacerbated by bad comms is hard to imagine a more damning
00:08verdict for Southeast Water. But that's one of the takeaways from an inquiry led by Kent County
00:16Council Scrutiny Committee looking into outages across Tunbridge Wells and Maidstone where
00:22thousands were left without running water over the winter months. The Tunbridge Wells Hotel was
00:29one of the businesses left high and dry nearly six months on they are still recovering. That period
00:37of time it really accounted to about a £40,000 loss for the week and that at that time of
00:43the year is
00:44substantial and that affects how you're going to operate for the rest of the year. It's a major
00:47blow to the bottom line. The committee's inquiry listed eight recommendations including better
00:54communications with customers and alternative supply options beyond bottled water for high
01:02use sites such as farms. They've lost trust of the public and if they don't implement any of these
01:08recommendations they'll lose the trust of local authorities and Kent County Council is a big
01:13player in Kent and we've got a lot of responsibility and we want to work with them so they'll be
01:20foolish
01:20not to take some of these recommendations on board. The inquiry comes not long after the
01:25chief executive of the water company David Hinton resigned under mounting pressure. For the
01:33Tunbridge Wells MP all of this is a step in the right direction. This is necessary to start that
01:41journey to fixing the culture in southeast water. It's not sufficient, it's not going to solve the
01:45problems but before we can get to tackling that culture problem tackling that that culture of low
01:51standards and under investment we needed to change the leadership. We've done that now it's the it really
01:56would come to the end of the beginning if I could paraphrase a great man with southeast water.
02:01Southeast Water says it is working with local authorities across Kent to bolster alternative water
02:09provision and is updating emergency procedures. This committee have made clear the changes they want
02:17to see. It's now over to the water company to show they're not going to bottle it. Olly Leader in
02:25Tunbridge Wells
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