Tim Mcmahon, Managing Director for Water at Southern Water, talks about the major water outage that affected Hastings and surrounding areas in early May 2024 and what the company's plans are going forward to make sure that it doesn't happen again.
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00:00So we're here today in Hastings to talk to our customers, listen and give them assurances
00:06that we're taking action to improve the performance that they're currently experiencing in the
00:12Hastings area.
00:13We recognise we're not performing where we should be, which we're sorry for, and therefore
00:17we want to talk to them and just reassure them that we're taking action, and one of
00:21those is around our water event that we saw in early May of this year, where we had 35,000
00:27properties out of water for a number of days, which impacted clearly customers doing their
00:32day-to-day life, but also for the businesses in the area, which was a very important time
00:37for them in the Jack and the Green festival.
00:39So I'll just take you through what happened and what we're looking to do about it.
00:43So what happened was at Darwell Service Reservoir, there's a big pumping station that feeds Bowport
00:48Water Supply Works, which is the big works that feeds about two-thirds of the Hastings
00:53area.
00:54That pipe burst just around about here, in very dense woodland, we had to fell 50 trees
01:00just to get to it, nearly had to call the army, it was that serious to get to.
01:06One of the most difficult locations I've seen in my career in 20 years, it was very, very
01:09hard for us to get to, it took time to find it, then it took time to fix it, it's a very
01:15complex main, it's reinforced concrete, it's not a quick pipe to fix, which we did, and
01:20then it takes a long time to then fill the reservoir, fill the pipe up, and then the
01:24water supply works here is a biological process, you can't just turn a switch and turn it on,
01:30it takes time to get the works working, and then because this whole area was dry, again
01:34it takes time for the pipes to fill up with water, so clearly a major incident for us,
01:39which we're deeply, deeply sorry, we had a massive response, probably one of the biggest
01:44water responses in the industry ever, we gave nearly 14 million bottles of water out
01:51to customers, a humongous amount of water was given to our customers.
01:56What are we doing about it?
01:57We've just commissioned a resilience report for the area, and have just submitted a report
02:02to our regulator, Ofwat, asking for nearly 40 million pounds to invest in the water infrastructure
02:08in Hastings over the next five years, clearly we need to go through a regulatory process
02:12with Ofwat to secure that funding, that funding is very, very important because we're going
02:17to look to resolve that risk.
02:19There's a few options that we're studying, do we replace that pipe, do we put a new pipe
02:24from Powder Mill to Bowport, or do we even upsize Breed to then have a bigger potable
02:29network that feeds this area, so that's going through a study at the moment, and that will
02:34be completed, the study will be completed next year, the works will be completed by
02:392029, 2030.
02:42We are going to take that plan to the council in mid-November to give them assurances of
02:47that plan, for them to hold us to account on that plan, and we'll work with them going
02:51forward to deliver the performance they need.