Not a Drop to Drink
Southern Water Faces Fresh Barrage of Complaint
HUGH SULLIVAN
Around 32,500 households across the majority of Hastings, St Leonards and Westfield were left without water for most of the bank holiday weekend following the bursting of a mains supply pipe in Keepers Wood below Beauport Park.
The pipe, which is the responsibility of Southern Water, brings water from Darwell Reservoir to treatment works at Beauport. The burst occurred last Thursday (2 May) in thick woodland. Company director Tim McMahon told BBC Radio Sussex that they were having to fell 50 trees in order to bring the required repair equipment to reach the site. “This is by far the most difficult location I’ve ever seen,” he said.
A repair was reported to have been effected by Saturday morning, but stringent tests then had to be carried out to ensure that the quality of drinking water was not impaired. Supply to areas that had run dry was only gradually restored during the course of Sunday, with many households and businesses still not resupplied as of Monday morning.
APOLOGIES
Southern Water has issued formal apologies and pledged that compensation for affected businesses would be offered “beyond regulatory and statutory obligations”. However, for many people in Hastings entering a fifth day without water on what is arguably the busiest hospitality weekend of the year, that’s scant acknowledgement.
John Bownas, representing town centre businesses as manager of Love Hastings Ltd, said: “If Hastings and Southern Water had declared war on each other 18 months ago, it would be easier to understand how the town has recently had so many water-related wounds inflicted on it.
“We’ve seen two huge floods, multiple sewer leaks, and now a four-day loss of water. With total losses likely to be in the high hundreds of thousands, if not reaching several millions, the much-anticipated May Day boost to our economy has been literally decimated. Bookings have been cancelled, and venues have had to close their doors.
“Did the leak pose such a threat that it had to be repaired immediately, or could the town have limped through the weekend with reduced water pressure but no significant impact on businesses?”
Several schools, colleges and other public offices were closed on Friday. Most hospitality venues did stay open over the weekend, coping as best they could with the absence of water.
Laurence Bell, owner of the White Rock Hotel, sent messages to incoming visitors offering to cancel their bookings. Some came anyway, some didn’t. The hotel stocked up with bottled water for drinking, cooking and washing up, and Laurence was out with others on the beach at high tide filling buckets of sea water for non-potable usage. He thinks that the hotel has suffered around a 50% loss of custom over the full weekend.
Town centre residents complained that the stations set up by Southern Water to dispense emergency stocks of bottled water were located only on the fringes of the town – at Marina Fountain in West St Leonards, at Asda in Silverhill and at Tesco in Hollington. Long queues of traffic built up from Friday morning to access these stations. Householders without a car were left stranded. The water company did make deliveries of bottled water to customers registered as ‘vulnerable’ on its priority services register, but feedback suggests that this was a ‘hit and miss’ response – some vulnerable families were not reached, others received supplies which were not needed.
PLAN TO REPLACE PIPE
Deeper questions have arisen as to Southern Water’s responsibility for providing alternative means of keeping the water flowing in the event of a breakage of the supply pipe. In 2006 – 18 years ago – the company sought planning permission from Rother District Council to replace the pipeline between Darwell and Beauport, described then as “outworn”. A document on the planning file shows East Sussex County Council accepting “that the applicant has provided sufficiently robust evidence of the need for replacement to maintain secure water supply to the Hastings area” despite the obvious temporary impact of works across an AONB (Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty). Permission was duly granted in April 2007.
The file also discloses a letter written by Southern Water to Rother in October 2015 indicating its intention at that point to “progress” the alternative pipeline project under a revised scheme. The company stated in the letter that “the existing pipeline is approaching the end of its operational life”.
So what has happened in the nine years since?
Further explanations from Southern Water are awaited. In the meantime Julia Hilton, newly re-elected leader of Hastings Borough Council, said: “It will be an absolute priority challenging Southern Water to sort out their infrastructure and ensure residents and businesses are properly compensated for the huge disruption.”
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The bigger question is that the money was allocated in Southern Water’s Business Plan 2005-2010 (now not available on their website) for this work. That money came from customers bills. If the work that customers paid for never happened, where did the money go?
I am hearing that Southern Water plans to only compensate businesses impacted by the 5 days without water – not residents. If the main supply pipe was deemed ‘outworn’ in 2006 and then Southern Water ignored this, then they are both negligent and liable. Get complaining everyone!