Customers failed over outages, water boss tells MPs

Customers failed over outages, water boss tells MPs11 minutes agoShareSaveAdd as preferred on GoogleJoshua AskewSouth EastPA MediaSouth East Water customers have face days of disruption in recent monthsThe boss of a water company has admitted to MPs it "failed" customers when severe supply issues caused misery for tens of thousands of people over the winter. Some 24,000 properties in Kent and Sussex lost water or had low pressure in November and December, and just weeks later up to 30,000 were hit with more issues. Grilled by MPs from the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee (Efra) on Tuesday, South East Water (SEW) chairman Chris Train said the company "could have done better" and that it "failed on the basic objective of delivering water to customers".He added: "It is absolutely untenable for customers to be without water."As it happened: South East Water outages 'failed customers', boss tells MPs as regulator warns of 'lasting damage'Businesses previously told the BBC they lost tens of thousands of pounds due to the supply failures. And one resident likened the outage in January - which SEW blamed on Storm Goretti and power cuts - to "Armageddon".A number of schools were also forced to close as SEW customers could not shower, bathe or flush their toilets. SEW has launched a £600,000 fund for affected businesses to claim compensation, the committee heard. However, Alistair Carmichael, the committee's chair, said on Tuesday that the amount "does not touch the sides". SEW chief executive David Hinton - who earns a base salary of £400,000 and received a £115,000 bonus last year - has faced multiple calls to resign over what happened. But Train told MPs the company's board was backing their chief executive.He added that Hinton has surrendered his bonus for this year. Tunbridge Wells MP Mike Martin said that SEW's leadership had made a "pathetic performance"...