- 8 hours ago
Catch up with all the latest political news across the county with Finn Macdiarmid.
This week he was joined by Kent County Councillors Paul Thomas, Restore group leader, and Stuart Heaver of The Green Party to discuss the fallout of South East Water failures.
This week he was joined by Kent County Councillors Paul Thomas, Restore group leader, and Stuart Heaver of The Green Party to discuss the fallout of South East Water failures.
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TVTranscript
00:20Hello and welcome to the Kent Politics Show live here on KMTV. I'm Finn McDermott and in Kent it's
00:26finally looking like we're getting some showers after a week of scorching heat and intermittent
00:31water supplies. Some residents in the county have even gone 11 days without consistent water outages
00:36with the issues widespread across Whitstable, Herne Bay, Maidstone and Sevenoaks. Southeast
00:41Water later told BBC Radio Kent they can make no guarantees that outages won't happen again
00:46which could be worrying as we move into the summer. But first here's Megan Shaw with all the latest.
00:52People are at the end of their tether breaking down in tears. They don't know what to do.
00:56The future is uncertain for Kent's water supply as support runs dry. Last week during the hottest
01:03May days on record hot and bothered residents across the county turned the taps and were met
01:09with nothing. Businesses shut up, residents queued for bottled water and while most of the county have
01:16supplies restored some residents in rural areas around Maidstone have gone 11 days without
01:23consistent supply. The first couple of days you work around it but it gradually as the time goes on
01:28and it's again and again it really does have kind of a real mental effect as well as physical. It's
01:34just
01:34exhausting having to remind the children not to flush the toilet or to go there or if they need a
01:40drink
01:40when to get one and how to get one. In response the leader of Kent County Council has launched her
01:46strategy to try and hold the water company responsible to account. What I'm going to do is set up the
01:54Kent
01:54Water Resilience Partnership because I think it is about time that somebody and that somebody is going
01:59to be me sets up a working group with strategic oversight to look at the resilience of the water
02:06supply across the entire county. Now the purpose of that group is going to be to bring together all the
02:12organizations responsible that's the water companies and their regulators into one space and if I need
02:19to bang a few heads together I'm fairly good at that. But South East Water who have attributed supply
02:25issues over the last six months to a number of factors from cold weather to hot weather to issues
02:32pumping water to higher ground were unable to confirm that the end was in sight to us. We absolutely
02:38recognize that this interruption is unacceptable really after the earlier incidents in Tunbridge Wells and
02:49that occurred over the winter due to other reasons. Obviously because of climate change we are starting to see
02:58more intense weather extremes occurring. We are also as a company in recognition of this investing more money over the
03:07next for a few years than we've ever invested before 2.1 billion pounds to improve our resilience.
03:13Nick Price went one step further with the BBC confirming that there was no guarantee it wouldn't happen again.
03:21But with the weather only set to get hotter as Kemp moves into summer and still 117 households in
03:28Merriworth still left hanging out to dry the water company continues to leave residents thirsty for answers.
03:36Megan Shaw for Kane TV.
03:39Well I'm pleased to say I'm now joined by two Kent County councillors, Paul Thomas, leader of the Restore Group
03:45and
03:46Stuart Heave of representing the Green Party. Thank you both for joining. Now first of all you both represent wards
03:51that have
03:51been affected by this Whitstable and Maidstone respectively. They have been affected if you haven't already been affected
03:57yourselves as well. So for South East Water to effectively confirm this will happen again must be incredibly frustrating for
04:04your constituents.
04:05I suppose first of all to you Stuart, tell us about this. How have your residents been reacting?
04:09Well they're absolutely furious and frustrated but we can't say we're surprised. This is the third water outage we've had
04:15in the
04:15Canterbury district thanks to South East Water in 10 months. This is not new, this is not exceptional, this is
04:21not an amazing new incident that we all need to be completely shocked by. This is just the norm now
04:27to switch on your taps in a perfectly pleasant seaside destination like Whitstable and nothing comes out.
04:34And can I also add, of course we're going to be talking about the water outages, but in Whitstable and
04:38many other coastal divisions we have a water infrastructure problem with waste water.
04:41At the end of the three-day outage in Whitstable, which absolutely devastated local businesses at a key trading period
04:48and really upset local households, some with vulnerable disabled children, they're trying to sterilise water, they don't have any water
04:55to sterilise.
04:56But on the last day we had a one-hour, eight-minute sewage discharge from the local sewage treatment work.
05:02So whilst I know, of course, we're going to focus about the outrage about water outages and South East Water's
05:08failures, let's not forget the water infrastructure stretches to wastewater treatment as well and it's completely inadequate in Kent.
05:15I see, the new norm you said there, Paul, is that something you agree with? This is becoming so repeated
05:19that it's almost accepted.
05:21If you go back, right, because you've just heard Lyndon, Cam, Karen saying we're going to have a Kent Resilience
05:27Forum, well that's just more talk shops.
05:29If you go back to the findings of the short-focused inquiry, KCC is a Category 1 responder under the
05:37Civil Contingencies Act 2004, which means we have to step in when the water companies fail, which is using officer
05:45time and expense when they should be doing other things.
05:49But if you go right the way back to the privatisation of the water companies under the Water Act 1991,
05:56that's where you had to set the regulations and the licences.
06:01The water mains that some of the water mains they inherited have been in the ground for over 100 years.
06:06The facilities, the facilities, if you take in Mate Stone South, where the loose service reservoir and boosters, the supply
06:16it feeds into that doesn't meet peak time demand.
06:19Now that's been going on for years.
06:21Where you then get your catastrophic water mains bursts or failures is because of the ageing plant and the state
06:31of the pipe work in the grounds.
06:34So the solution rests with government and the water companies.
06:41Now my stance is, it's quite simple, stop talking about it, stop trying to politicise it, just accept until the
06:49government grows a pair and the water companies do what it says on the tin, it's the failures on both
06:56of those.
06:56The government's to force the water companies to do what's required because quite frankly, the reservoir in Mate Stone is
07:06going to fail time and time again until you sort out the supply issues.
07:11So it's not we haven't got the water, we can't get the water to where it's required.
07:15And if you look at developers, because they always take a big bashing here, they pay £700 or thereabouts infrastructure
07:24charge.
07:25So for every £30,000, which is the growth in housing numbers in Kent from 2020 to 2024, you're talking
07:34in the regions of £21 million.
07:37So where's that gone? But likewise, the customers are paying out somewhere in the region of £45 per month standing
07:47charge.
07:48So over £100,000, that's in excess of £4 million each and every year.
07:53Where's that being spent? Because I can't see where it's going and my residents are just up in arms saying,
08:00we can't trust it, we're paying for failure.
08:02And that's how I see it and it's got to stop.
08:05I see. Obviously, reform aren't here to defend themselves and their resilience forum.
08:10Stuart, what do you make of this resilience forum?
08:12I think it's hot air. I think it's the normal Reform UK response to most problems facing Kent residents.
08:18Let's issue a press release. Let's have some ideology. Let's have some fanfare, some flag waving and some nonsense.
08:25Residents in my division don't want resilience forums. They don't want talking shops. They want action.
08:30And actually, there was eight specific actions being proposed at Kent County Council by myself with cross-party support and
08:36amongst opposition benches the Thursday before this happened.
08:39And it was sabotaged by Reform UK on a procedural point.
08:42So we went into that May bank holiday period and we could have started to implement some sensible, pragmatic measures.
08:49But no, if you remember, we were all talking about the Lord's Prayer and the National Anthem.
08:53And we can't sing and pray to sort out Kent's water infrastructure.
08:56We need practical, pragmatic actions, not more talking shops and more press releases.
09:02In defence of reform, they don't have direct powers over the regulatory bodies.
09:07And I feel that I've been out. I was in the area of Kemsing where I spoke to many people
09:11who were even taken off the priority list for not being bed bound despite having some disabilities.
09:16And something that they said and something that other people have constantly been saying is that there is a lack
09:20of communication, whether that's from southeast water.
09:22So by putting the people in the room, as Kent County Council have called it, I believe that's what they've
09:27said, that they're going to have businesses in to be able to talk.
09:30And so you guys are saying that's hot air.
09:32I think it is hot air. And the reason it's hot air is we already have these forums.
09:35We have the Kent Flood and Water Management Committee at KCC.
09:38Since I've been a councillor for one year, I've had formal meetings with southeast water and southern water at KCC,
09:45public meetings in Whitstable,
09:47public meetings at Canterbury City Council, also sit as a borough councillor, and they're suitably contrite.
09:54And we have this great theatre of angry and cross councillors and elected representatives representing their residents, saying how it's
10:02unacceptable.
10:03What are they going to do about it? And then we all just move on to the next thing.
10:07We've got to stop just having this theatrical response and take practical measures.
10:12Of course, KCC does not regulate the water industry, and it's regulated, unfortunately, very poorly at the moment.
10:17But local councillors at borough level and county level can do more than sit on their hands.
10:22And I think this is what a lot of people don't realise.
10:24Of course, we want to hold water companies responsible.
10:27Privatised water is a scam. Kent's been sleepwalking into a water catastrophe for at least three years.
10:32But also, local government is guilty of sitting on its hands and not doing enough.
10:38It's somebody else's problem. It's a national issue.
10:40It's the national regulator. It's OFWAT. It's the Environment Agency.
10:44Yes, it is. But you are an elected public body with responsibilities for the local economy, for public health and
10:51for emergency response, as Paul points out.
10:53And what are we doing? Not enough. Right. I see. Paul, I see you want to jump in.
10:57Yeah. If we just take the politics out of it, because otherwise we weaponise things.
11:02The reason for referring to the water resilience thing is I can't see how that's actually going to achieve it.
11:08But what we need is cooperation from all the Kent County councillors, lobbying government to say enough's enough, sort it
11:17out or get out of the way and let people that are going to tackle it.
11:20Because when I'm looking at my residents, a lot that didn't even vote for me, they're looking at me to
11:25say,
11:26Paul, one, when you've got an intermittent supply, you never know when the taps are on or off.
11:31You've got issues with the bottled water supply. That didn't start for five days because we didn't have a catastrophic
11:38event and we class as intermittent.
11:41So what it does need, it needs that collaboration between people and get the government and the water companies to
11:47actually act.
11:48Really, really sorry. I have to cut you off there. Thank you guys so much.
11:50We'll be back after just this short break. See you in just a few minutes with more on Kent's politics.
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