South East Water boss must go, says Eastbourne MP

Speaking in the House of Commons yesterday (12th January), Eastbourne MP Josh Babarinde called for the resignation of the Chief Executive of South East Water, David Hinton, after local residents were left with little or no water over the weekend.

Mr Hinton,  the CEO of South East Water, who earns a base salary of £400,000 and received a bonus of £115,000 last year, has come under fire after large areas of Kent and East Sussex were affected by the outages, which South East Water attributed to cold weather and the recent storm. 

Mr Babarinde highlighted serious failures affecting communities, including Sovereign Harbour, Langney, Hampden Park and St Anthony’s, where households experienced prolonged low or zero water pressure.

Despite Mr Babarinde’s request for a bottled water station in Eastbourne to provide emergency water, South East Water failed to provide it. Instead, residents had to travel as far as East Grinstead, a round trip of more than 70 miles, to access emergency supplies.

The Eastbourne MP also raised concerns that many residents on the Priority Services Register were left without adequate support or information, despite being among the most vulnerable.

Mr Babarinde described the company as a “busted flush”, pointing to years of underinvestment and poor resilience planning.

In a statement, Mr Babarinde said:

"South East Water has failed our town and our region.

This is the fourth major water outage since I became Eastbourne’s MP,

This latest incident is just another appalling failure to add to a growing list on hose pipe bans, water outages and droughts"

He added that South East Water are "Leaving it to residents to pick up the bill.”

Responding in the Commons, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Emma Reynolds, said she was “as outraged as he is” and acknowledged the seriousness of the situation.

Mr Babarinde has called for urgent reform of South East Water and for those responsible at the top of the company to be held accountable.