Well, what a hideous few days it has been for us all here in East Grinstead, Uckfield, and the villages. My team and I, among others including local Councillors, have been working round the clock this weekend and into the week at all hours trying to ensure water is delivered to residents. An outrageous outage and multiple failures.
I have joined a multitude of meetings with DEFRA and South East Water, amongst my usual local diary, raising residents’ concerns, businesses anger, and deep stress over the situation. Particularly for our most vulnerable and those with livestock.
About 40,000 people in Sussex and Kent have been affected and the worst in East Grinstead and our Wealden villages area – with over 16, 000 households it’s expected to take another day or two to be fixed as the water must be a certain quality before it can reach our taps and for the system to fully settle I suspect longer. Rest assured QVH indeed had its own tanker as I mentioned in my social media posts which continues to perform okay so they have supplies for the most vulnerable and to keep services as much as on track as possible.
This has hugely impacted businesses and the hospitality sector at the worst possible time, which has also been constantly on my mind. Ashdown Park Hotel losing masses of business as well as our smaller traders.
People need to be held to account for this and we will be looking at what exactly has happened here including the poor communication updates residents have reported. I have called for the CEO to be held to account – it’s time for this organisation to have leadership change.
I raised an Urgent Question in the Chamber as soon as I could on Monday regarding what my residents have had to endure. It is clear the logistics failed badly with poorly planned water bottled stations causing gridlock in the town.
Communication has ranged from incorrect, poor to non-existent, and our rural village areas have been very badly served. I know the community has rallied to support elderly neighbours and vulnerable and that is good to see; but the scale, duration and the response to the disruption has simply been unacceptable by the water company.
It is clear to me that new leadership is required at South East Water. It is safe to say confidence is non-existent in them, with this happening again and we need confidence and changes for the future. They have simply failed to prepare for this and their dire response shows.
Ofwat the regulator, have asked for information regarding the company’s response. I will not be holding back with my honest appraisal.
I’ll continue to escalate cases to the water company especially where supplies have been missed. This cannot ever happen again.
