South East Water CEO commits to faster repairs in meeting with Eastbourne MP
South East Water CEO has committed to cutting the time taken to repair leaks in a meeting with Eastbourne’s MP.
Jon Halsall met with Josh Babarinde MP on Wednesday, August 26 to to discuss important issues and concerns around water supply in the area.
Mr Babarinde said the amount of water lost by South East Water a day is ‘unacceptable’ and raised several local cases of unresolved leaks, including an ongoing incident in Mountney Road in Old Town.
The MP confirmed that Mr Halsall ‘committed to reducing the time it takes to fix leaks from an average 15 days from reporting to repairing, to 5 days over the next six months’.
Mr Babarinde also confirmed that the water company will invest £200m in pipe upgrades to help prevent outages but stressed he will continue to push on this as it is ‘nowhere near enough to upgrade the whole system’.
He said: “We discussed how we can better prepare Eastbourne for future disruption, including the role of water butts and other community measures.
“We also discussed the longer-term future of our water supply, including new reservoirs and desalination plants, and what South East Water is doing to strengthen resilience across the network.
“There’s lots of work to do to fix our broken water industry. I made it clear that I will hold South East Water to account to drive up standards, and will work with them and our community to help address the serious issues that have persisted for far too long.”
Mr Halsall confirmed he will not take a bonus while bills go up, but Mr Babarinde stressed he will push further on this to learn whether any other senior executives will take bonuses.
During the meeting, South East Water also committed to financially supporting a community project that will support the town and environment, which Mr Babarinde will share more information about ‘in the coming weeks’.
The MP raised the issue of not receiving bottled water deliveries during outages, and Mr Halsall confirmed that the Priority Services Register process for vulnerable residents has been streamlined to ensure all vulnerable residents registered will automatically receive the deliveries.
The meeting came a day before water outages in an area of Eastbourne meant South East Water had to deliver bottled water to affected households.