South East Water boss peddles bullshit over bill increases

The boss of South East Water (SEW) has claimed that higher bills are needed, despite 17,000 homes still being left without water across Kent.

Yesterday, January 13, South East Water left 30,000 properties without water. The company claimed:

Our drinking water storage tanks across the counties are running low following an outbreak of leaks and burst water mains after the recent cold weather.

Of course – blame the cold weather instead of privatisation and mismanagement.

Importantly, however, company bosses are now claiming that bills must increase – despite Ofwat, the water regulator, having banned further bill increases. SEW is now appealing against that ban – because apparently the rules shouldn’t apply to them.

South East Water put profits before people

In the six months leading up to September 30, 2025, SEW made £14.6m profit, after tax. This was up from £7.8m in the same period of 2024.

Any company making that much money should be able to fix a few leaky pipes without charging customers even more extortionate prices.

Everything you need to know about South East Water and the water industry in a single sentence.

Between 2020 – 2022 South East Water spent more on paying dividends and debt interest that they invested in infrastructure like pipes and water treatment works. https://t.co/UEEOAx1s9t

— Feargal Sharkey (@Feargal_Sharkey) January 12, 2026

The failure of privatised water is obvious and getting worse. Poll after poll shows the public want it renationalised.
Yet Labour, the Tories and Reform cling to business as usual.
When the solution is this clear, refusal is ideology, not pragmatism. https://t.co/AdnXIxwHWT

— Devutopia (@D_Raval) January 12, 2026

During Keir Starmer’s 2020 campaign to become leader of the Labour Party, he made 10 pledges outlining his vision for the party. One of these was the re-nationalisation of water, rail, mail, and energy.

Specifically, one of the pledges said:

public services should be in public hands, not making profits for shareholders. Support common ownership of rail, mail, energy and water.

But by 2021, when asked about the same pledge, he said:

I don’t see nationalisation there.

So it seems that Starmer either has a very short memory or, now that he has power, he doesn’t give a shit. So much for all that ‘my dad was a toolmaker’ bullshit. He certainly created a tool.

Recalled to parliament

Only yesterday, MPs recalled South East Water bosses over a December water outage, where 24,377 properties in Kent were left without water for two weeks in the run-up to Christmas. The parliamentary environment select committee said that it “remained deeply sceptical” about the water company’s version of events.

According to the Financial Times:

Two hospitals, a kidney treatment centre, 15 schools, 19 care homes and 29 nurseries in Tunbridge Wells and the surrounding areas were left without water for two weeks before Christmas.

At the start of December, Mike Martin, MP for Tunbridge Wells, urged the chief executive of South East Water to resign over his company’s failures, as 240,000 customers were left without water for four days.

But SEW has had similar problems since 2023, when Ofwat said the company was the “worst performing in England and Wales for water supply interruptions.

Now, SEW claims that:

Ofwat’s decision to, among other things, refuse to fully fund key resilience schemes meant that, as a board, we were left with no option but to take the difficult decision to appeal Ofwat’s determination to the Competition and Markets Authority in March 2025.

What about that £14.6m profit? Do you think the bosses at SEW have a single brain cell between them? Most businesses tend to reinvest at least some of their profits to improve the services they provide. But not SEW. They attempt to extort customers’ purses even more, so they can continue paying their shareholders huge dividends.

And when it doesn’t work? They’ll go crying to the government.

It’s about to get worse

The privatisation of our public services has been nothing short of a disaster for our country. But it’s only set to get worse.

The government has continued to greenlight AI data centres, which use huge amounts of water, in areas already experiencing acute water stress.

And as the Canary previously reported, we’re already on track for a water deficit of 5bn litres a day by 2050. This figure does not “adequately account” for AI infrastructure or data centres, because the owners aren’t compelled to report on water usage.

Whether it’s increasing rail fares, energy bills, or Royal Mail failing to meet delivery targets – privatisation has never worked. It allows the wealthy shareholders to deepen their pockets, while regular people struggle to make ends meet. And Starmer knows exactly what he’s doing.

Featured image via HG