Ofwat has confirmed a £30.5M redress package and the appointment of an Independent Monitor for South East Water after concluding three separate investigations into the water company.

The regulator opened an investigation after a succession of problems left hundreds of thousands of households in Kent and Sussex without tap water over several years.

The study found the company had not adequately planned for extreme weather and peak demand, and had failed to maintain key infrastructure.

Supply interruptions affecting more than 286,000 customers between 2020 and 2023 were the subject of an initial investigation, in which Ofwat said South East Water “failed to plan sufficiently, maintain key infrastructure or learn from previous incidents”.

A further investigation followed interruptions between November 2025 and January 2026, including outages during Storm Goretti that affected as many as 70,000 homes, and concluded the company did not communicate properly with customers or consistently supply bottled water to those without tap water.

Customers reported being unable to shower or bathe, facing long queues for bottled water, cancelling work because of school closures and struggling to manage medical needs.

A third enquiry was prompted by Moody’s downgrade of South East Water’s credit rating on 28 May, which put the company in breach of a licence condition requiring two investment‑grade ratings.

Moody’s cited concerns about supply resilience, echoing the regulator’s findings.

Ofwat said the package, which will be paid for by the company’s shareholders and not from customer bills, “reflects the full extent of failings” identified across the inquiries.

The money will be used to fund a remediation plan and wider improvements to South East Water’s network.

South East Water will be required to identify the root causes of its operational failures and implement technical fixes.

The company has also committed to publish a performance improvement plan aimed at delivering sustained improvements for customers and the environment.

Breakdown of the redress package:

The regulator previously consulted on a proposed £22M fine in March related to the earlier outages.

In addition to the redress sum, Ofwat will appoint an independent monitor to oversee delivery of the company’s undertakings and to review progress against the performance improvement plan.

The cost of the independent monitor will be met by South East Water and is separate from the £30.5M redress package.

Ofwat said it will begin procurement for the monitor at pace.

Ofwat executive director for delivery Helen Campbell said: “South East Water must now focus on what matters most, its customers.

“These failures have caused real disruption and hardship for residents and businesses across many years, and supply interruptions of this scale have happened far too often.

“This package is the first step towards full accountability and to improving overall performance, and we welcome the company’s engagement to bring these cases to a conclusion. But the work doesn’t stop today, South East Water needs to make meaningful, lasting changes to ensure customers can rely on the service they receive.”

A spokesperson for South East Water said: “We are incredibly sorry for the historical supply disruptions that affected our customers across Kent and Sussex. We know this caused significant disruption and anxiety, and we accept the failures identified by Ofwat. It is not the standard of service our customers deserve.

“Our priority has been to ensure that the resolution of this investigation directly benefits those who suffered the most. By working in collaboration with Ofwat, we have agreed to a £30.5 million redress package, which will be wholly funded by South East Water’s shareholders. Choosing this route over a standard fine means these significant funds will directly benefit those customers who were impacted, some of them on multiple occasions.

“We are fully committed to learning from the past, transforming our business and delivering our largest-ever investment programme through our Price Review 24 (PR24) business plan. We are focused on sustainably expanding our network resilience and drinking water storage capacity so that we can prevent these failures from happening again.”

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