Water latest

This is a crucial question our customers are right to ask. Maintaining a good water supply in your area is of paramount importance to us. It is our responsibility to do everything we can to avoid restrictions and make your summer the best it can be.

As part of this, we are investing significantly in infrastructure, leakage reduction and smart metering to create a more resilient water supply.

You can find out about our work on tackling leaks here(opens in a new tab).

To prepare for summer we have:

• Increased the amount of water we can treat at several sites across Kent and Sussex.
• Changed when we do maintenance on our water treatment works and treated water storage tanks to make sure we have as much water available as possible.
• Increased the amount of untreated (raw) water we can take from locations in Kent.
• Launched a comprehensive leakage recovery strategy, investing in new detection technologies, expanding our specialist teams, and increasing investment across our network.
• Appointed a dedicated Alternative Water Manager and bought additional water tankers. These tankers help us move water around the network and boost supplies if needed. We have 11 currently in use.
• Identified ‘at risk’ areas for closer monitoring and developed plans to put in place if there are any further water shortages.

There’s still more to do. The south east of England is one of the most water-stressed areas in the country. We need new treatment plants, storage reservoirs and pipes to make sure we always have enough water in the future. It takes time to plan and build these – and that’s exactly what we’re doing.

Reducing the risk of supply interruptions

We are starting an accelerated six-month programme of operational changes and engineering works to reduce the risk of supply interruptions and improve customer experience. The works include:

• Improving water pipe and network connections, to maximise the flow of available water in the network from local drinking water storage tanks
• Reviewing the performance of Water Treatment Works and accelerating technical upgrades that were previously scheduled later in South East Water’s resilience programme
• Fast-tracking the investment installation of batteries at key sites to mitigate the impact of any power blips, particularly when hot weather or high demand periods drive power surges
• Installing additional temporary drinking water storage tanks at critical sites to provide additional treated water storage, increasing the volume of water available.

Together, these changes seek to improve resilience and the water supply by increasing the availability of water when customers and communities need it most – particularly during peak periods.

Improving Customer Experience

In the event of future water supply outages, we’re making changes to our operations which include the way we supply alternative water to customers. In particular, we’ll be looking at how we provide water to critical care sites including care homes, GP surgeries, and schools.

As part of this, we’re working closely with local resilience and community groups to ensure alternative water sources – including water tankers and bottled water stations – are in optimal locations to support the needs of local communities, and they have sufficient resources to maximise the volume of water when it is needed most.

To manage these resources, we’ll digitise our operations when stocking and delivering alternative water to customers. This will mean we’re more efficient in the way we respond to incidents and help make sure customers and communities can rely on us to maintain alternative supplies.

Future plans

We also have lots of plans to improve our network in the future. These are set out in our business plan. You can read the plan here(opens in a new tab) or a summary of the plan here(opens in a new tab).