PA MediaSouth East Water customers have face days of disruption in recent monthsThe boss of a water company has admitted to MPs it "failed" customers when severe supply issues caused misery for tens of thousands of people over the winter.
Some 24,000 properties in Kent and Sussex lost water or had low pressure in November and December, and just weeks later up to 30,000 were hit with more issues.
Grilled by MPs from the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee (Efra) on Tuesday, South East Water (SEW) chairman Chris Train said the company "could have done better" and that it "failed on the basic objective of delivering water to customers".
He added: "It is absolutely untenable for customers to be without water."
Businesses previously told the BBC they lost tens of thousands of pounds due to the supply failures.
And one resident likened the outage in January - which SEW blamed on Storm Goretti and power cuts - to "Armageddon".
A number of schools were also forced to close as SEW customers could not shower, bathe or flush their toilets.
SEW has launched a £600,000 fund for affected businesses to claim compensation, the committee heard.
However, Alistair Carmichael, the committee's chair, said on Tuesday that the amount "does not touch the sides".
SEW chief executive David Hinton - who earns a base salary of £400,000 and received a £115,000 bonus last year - has faced multiple calls to resign over what happened.
But Train told MPs the company's board was backing their chief executive.
He added that Hinton has surrendered his bonus for this year.
Tunbridge Wells MP Mike Martin said that SEW's leadership had made a "pathetic performance" at the committee.
"If the board thinks that Dave Hinton is the best person for the job, then they too are failing in their job," he told the BBC.
Bills for SEW customers were set to rise by 7% from April, bringing the average yearly bill to £324 for 2026/27 - up from £303 the year before.
'Lasting consequences'
Dr Mike Keil, CEO at the Consumer Council for Water, said a survey of SEW customers in the area shows 54% now store bottled water in case there is another outage.
He added that nearly a fifth of people now only drink bottled water, after SEW issued a boil water notice for several days last year.
"This type of interruption, of this duration, has lasting damage and lasting consequences," he said.
Environment Secretary Emma Reynolds called the water supply disruptions faced by businesses and homes "completely unacceptable".
Could nationalisation fix South East Water?
Hinton said on Tuesday that the company had learnt some lessons following the supply failures.
But he added: "Clearly we've got a lot more to learn".
Commitee member and MP Josh Newbury said SEW's communications during the interruptions were "haphazard and inconsistent".
The issues they faced were "about as abject as failure can get in our world", he added.
Hinton conceded that he "got it wrong" over how quickly he communicated with the public at the time.
He added that the company did not identify early enough when issues began at one of its treatment works in November, which left homes in Tunbridge Wells, Pembury, Eridge and Frant without drinking water for nearly two weeks.
"If we had spotted it earlier we would have resolved it," he added.
Hinton was previously told by MPs the company had been "flying blind" before the problems at the treatment works.
Henry Tufnell, one of the committee's MPs, said SEW was "not doing the basics" in relation to a report which highlighted its lack of routine maintenance.
The company has said it is investing £2.1bn into infrastructure and resilience over the next five years.
SEW chairman Train called climate change an "element factor" in outages.
The "speed and severity of climate change in the South East particularly has outstripped reasonable predictions", he said.
BBC/Yvette AustinCalls have been made for South East Water chief executive, David Hinton, to resignOfwat proposed fining SEW £22m in March over disruptions affecting 286,000 people between 2020 and 2023.
The fine - which is the second biggest fine the regulator has ever put forward - does not cover newer failures.
Ofwat is also investigating whether the company has breached its licence conditions.
Speaking to the committee on Tuesday, the regulator's chief executive Chris Walters said they were seeing SEW making "steps forward".
"Only time will tell if those are sufficient," he said.
SEW, which is owned by a group of investment and pension funds led by Utilities Trust of Australia, has debt of £1.3bn, according to its latest annual report.
Pre-tax losses for the year to 31 March 2025 narrowed to £19.8m from £36.7 in the previous year.
SEW serves about 2.3 million people across Kent, Sussex, Surrey, Hampshire and Berkshire.
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