New Bill will give better protection to Hastings area from Southern Water failures says MP

In the past year alone, Hastings, Rye and the villages have suffered multiple floods, sewage spills, and water outages including an incident in May which left thousands of homes in Hastings without water for up to five days.

The Water Special Measures Bill will:

• Strengthen regulation to ensure water bosses face personal criminal liability for lawbreaking.

• Give the water regulator new powers to ban the payment of bonuses if environmental standards are not met.

• Introduce new powers to bring automatic and severe fines.

• Require water companies to install real-time monitors at every sewage outlet with data independently scrutinised by the water regulators.

• Give Ofwat the power to set rules to increase customer representation in decision-making to hold companies to account.

Hastings, Rye and the villages took centre stage in the debate on the Bill in Parliament, with Steve Reed, the Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, mentioning his formative experiences of speaking to local residents about water outages in the area.

Alongside these measures to crack down on water companies, the government announced that new and increased compensation will be compulsory for water companies to pay to customers and businesses in the event of issues like water supply outages, sewer flooding or low water pressure.

Following a supply interruption in Hastings and St Leonards in May 2024 which left 30,000 residents without water for five days, and an earlier incident in September 2023 in Rye which left 10,000 residents without water for up to nine days, residents were not compensated, and still had to pay their water bills for the days of the outage, says the MP.

Under the new regulations, loopholes allowing water companies to avoid paying out compensation during these incidents will be closed and water customers will benefit from significantly higher payments to compensate them for water company service failures.

In November, Helena Dollimore MP questioned David Black, the Chief Executive of Ofwat, the water industry regulator, about the current standards regulating compensation payments during a session of Parliament’s Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee.

He agreed the rules needed to be changed, and agreed to meet with her to discuss whether Southern Water’s failure to give any compensation for the May 2024 outage was legal.

In recognition of the impacts of these incidents, the current reforms underscore the government’s commitments to hold water companies to account for poor performance and to stand up for consumers who receive compromised water services, says the MP

She said: “We are still fighting for to get the rightful compensation that Southern Water owes our community. I am pleased the government is acting to increase compensation for incidents like these.”

“Water companies have been let off the hook for too long. Instead of forcing the industry to invest in fixing infrastructure, customers’ money was siphoned off in shareholder payouts and bonuses. My constituents are now facing record water bills because of that failure.”

“This is just the start of the change. I thank the government for announcing an independent commission into the water sector to see what more can be done to ensure it works for customers and the environment, and I will be working hard to represent the experiences of Hastings, Rye and the villages in that process.”

Steve Reed MP, the Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said: “I have spoken to residents in Hastings and Rye who were rightly furious at the inadequate information, lack of alternative supply and little to no compensation when yet another outage happened in their locality.”

“I pay huge credit to my hon. Friend [Helena Dollimore MP]. She has been such a champion for her communities in Hastings and Rye, demanding the better water services they deserve.”

In November, Southern Water unveiled its multimillion pound proposals to upgrade Hastings’ water and wastewater networks.

The firm said the plans were developed following engagement with the community and key stakeholders after water supply problems and flooding in recent years.

It said the proposals include improvements to its water supply works at Beauport and Brede, refurbishment of reservoir pumps and valves at its Darwell site, and upgrades to the main water supply pipe which connects it to Brede, construction of a new reservoir at Newgate, and installation of 25km of new water mains, and associated pressure management technology, in the Hastings area.

In a report accompanying the proposals, Southern Water said: “We want to make long-term, robust improvements to how we serve the community of Hastings with water and wastewater services, both now and in the future.

“We have submitted a £40m resilience case to Ofwat, which includes the requirements in Hastings.”

“We recognise that our performance in the Hastings area must improve, and we are committing to investing and upgrading across the board to get there.”

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