Regulator investigating South East Water after supply cut to thousands of homes

South East Water (SEW) is being investigated by regulator Ofwat after repeated outages since November have left tens of thousands of households and businesses across Kent and Sussex without drinking water.

In an update on Thursday, the firm said around 8,500 addresses were still without water. With some properties entering a sixth day without water, the watchdog said it was investigating whether SEW had breached its licence conditions by failing to meet customer service standards obligations or by offering appropriate support to those affected.

It comes after the government asked the watchdog to review the company's licence. In November and December, Tunbridge Wells suffered a sustained outage, with 24,000 properties in and around the Kent town left without drinkable water for almost two weeks.

Ofwat is already looking into SEW's supply resilience to assess whether it has failed to develop and maintain an efficient water supply systems, which is ongoing. Lynn Parker, Ofwat senior director for enforcement, said the last six weeks had been "miserable for businesses and households across Kent and Sussex with repeated supply problems.

"We know that this has had a huge impact on all parts of daily life and hurt businesses, particularly in the run-up to the festive period. "That is why we need to investigate and to determine whether the company has breached its licence condition." It is the regulator's first investigation into a potential breach of the customer-focused licence condition.

Kent County Council declared a major incident on Monday. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said on Wednesday that ministers were holding emergency daily meetings over the ongoing SEW outage after a number of schools in Kent and Sussex were forced to close due to the outage.

SEW blamed power cuts and burst pipes caused by Storm Goretti overnight between Friday and Saturday last week for the disruption to services. Water restored to 16,500 SEW's incident manager, Matthew Dean, said around 8,500 properties across Kent are currently without water but supplies have been restored "to the 16,500 properties in East Grinstead.