Water firm not done well enough, new boss admits

The new boss of a heavily-criticised water company has admitted that it has "not done well enough" in delivering a safe, reliable water supply to its customers.

John Halsall, on his first day as chief executive at South East Water (SEW), said that customers "rightly expect better, and we need to show them that things are changing".

The water firm was ordered to spend £30.5m on improvements earlier in July after recent supply interruptions hit thousands of its customers across Kent and Sussex.

Water regulator Ofwat said that it followed the conclusion of three investigations into the company's repeated failures.

Halsall comes with a "clear plan to improve day-to-day performance and rebuild trust with customers", an SEW spokesperson said.

He pledged to fix day-to-day performance, drive operational excellence and ensure transparent and authentic engagement with customers, stakeholders and regulators.

"My immediate priority is to respond to customers' concerns about their water service and deliver the short-term improvements we can make now, while strengthening resilience for the future," he said.

"This transformation will not be easy, and people will rightly judge us by our actions, not our words."

Previous chief executive David Hinton resigned in May.

Lisa Clement, SEW interim chairperson, said: "John joins us at a critical moment for the company.

"Our customers deserve a safe, reliable water supply, and we must accelerate the improvements needed to deliver this."

Earlier this week, the company expanded its hosepipe ban in Kent to cover 2.4m people across parts of Sussex, Surrey, Hampshire and Berkshire.

SEW warned in its annual report that it needed to secure fresh financing to stay afloat after taking a £55m hit from outages over the winter.

The firm is the water supplier to about 2.3m customers in the south-east of England and said that it was in discussions with lenders to agree a new loan facility.

Halsall previously served as chief executive at Pennon Group, where he was responsible for water and wastewater operations across South West Water, Bournemouth Water and Bristol Water.

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