South East Water fined for 52 million litre breach

South East Water (SEW) has been given a penalty of almost £76,000 for taking millions of litres of water from the countryside without permission, the Environment Agency (EA) says.

The agency said for six weeks in 2021 the company illegally took more than 52 million litres (about 11.4 million gallons) from underground sources on a farm near Tonbridge in Kent, in a practice known as abstraction.

The company had not renewed its abstraction licence before the water, which was enough to fill 300,000 baths, was taken between May and June.

Nick Price, SEW's head of water resources, said the issue was due to human error and it alerted the EA as soon as it became aware of the unlicensed abstraction.

"The EA accepted that the unlicensed abstraction had no actual adverse impact on the environment, and it was within the parameters of both the expired licence and the new licence that was subsequently issued," he added.

Price said a changeover of staff was to blame for the mistake.

The EA said no-one at SEW checked if the licence had been renewed and staff had to rely on manual records, with no process to flag when new licences were needed.

Price said the company had since introduced measures to ensure expiry dates of licences were flagged automatically.

"We sincerely apologise for this error and have implemented processes to ensure it does not happen again," he added.

Fiona Kent, a senior environment officer for the EA in Kent, said: "SEW acted negligently in letting the abstraction licence expire, putting the environment at risk.

"Luck was on their side and that of the environment that no harm was caused during the six weeks of unlicensed use."

The EA said licences were necessary to protect water resources and safeguard wildlife habitats and the environment from the damaging effects of taking too much water.

The agency controls how much, where and when water is abstracted through its licensing system, which is also designed to prevent water shortages.

The company appealed the level of the penalty because no harm was caused, but this was dismissed by judge Catherine Harris on 4 March 2026 following an earlier tribunal hearing, the EA said.

Price said SEW accepted the judge's decision.

The agency said it had warned the company "several times" since 2014 to keep within the parameters of its abstraction licences at different locations.

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