Horsham MP Jeremy Quin meets Southern Water CEO to discuss recent outages

Thousands of customers were left without any water supply due to a failure at the company’s plant in Hardham.

The incident was caused by unusually low levels of chlorine being detected by Southern Water at its water supply works.

Although this did not impact customers, it had to shut down the site and was unable to supply water to thousands of homes across West Sussex.

Prior to the meeting with Lawrence Gosden, Mr Quin had been running a survey on his website asking for people’s experience of Southern Water during the outage. He went through the results (which can be found on his website www.jeremyquin.com) and they corroborated the concerns many constituents had raised with him individually.

It was particularly concerning that many residents could not get through to the emergency helpline, that the bottled water stations took too long to get to critical mass and that some vulnerable people were left too long without bottled water delivery.

Mr Quin said: "I had spoken to the CEO during the outage and wanted reassurance now services have returned that action will be taken to reduce the risk of a repetition and ensure a better response if we have another emergency situation.

“On certain issues, for example the banding for compensation and ensuring vulnerable people in new developments are properly recorded, I was given immediate reassurance. On other issues, especially deliveries and communications Southern Water are due to complete their investigation into the outage shortly and I will be meeting Mr Gosden again soon to go through the outcomes from this investigation and the lessons learnt.

“Southern Water are in no doubt as to how seriously this outage is being taken. A future meeting is also being arranged to follow-up on water quality and discharges on which progress is being made but MPs want to see more detail of Southern's plans."

Compensation should now have been paid and Mr Quin is keen to hear from constituents who feel they are entitled to receive it and have not done so via [email protected]