“Completely unacceptable”

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The chief executive of Southern Water has described the company’s response to the 2023 water problems in Rye as “completely unacceptable and inexcusable”. Lawrence Godsen was speaking during a meeting of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee on Tuesday, January 21 when he was grilled by Hastings and Rye MP Helena Dollimore.

She listed a catalogue of failures by the water company which she described as having the worst record in Britain. She told MPs ten thousand people in and around Rye lost water for up to eight days in 2023.

Referring also to more recent incidents in Hastings and Hampshire, all had exactly the same failures she said. “Bottle water not delivered. Not enough water stations. Traffic gridlock. Unbearable conditions for the vulnerable and elderly. Businesses and schools closed.”

Hastings and Rye MP Helena Dollimore during the SEFRA select committee meeting

“Do you think Southern Water’s handling of this incidents was adequate?” she asked.

In reply Lawrence Godsen said he had been chief executive for two and a half years and had been brought in to turn the company round. “It is a completely unacceptable position for there to have been any of these incidents. There were inexcusable levels of duration of the incidents.” Pressed further he acknowledged: “Our response has been nowhere good enough.”

He explained the Rye water failure was caused by a burst pipe under the railway bridge. “It was an extraordinarily difficult fix. Ideally it would not have happened. It was an extremely difficult operation.”

Residents in Rye were compensated at the legal minimum for the outage. In December the government announced that it would be raising the level of compensation water companies would owe customers following supply failure. Residents in Hastings have yet to receive any compensation after the supply was cut to 30,000 people in May 2024. Lawrence Dodsen agreed to review that decision during the select committee meeting.
Southern Water CEO Lawrence Godsen

Helena Dollimore wanted to know whether he took responsibility for the problems. “These happened on your watch after decades of under investment, resulting in crumbling infrastructure. If you accept that your handling of these incidents is not adequate and that those incidents should have never happened in the first place, why did you choose to take a bonus of £160,000 in July last year?”

Mr Godsen explained some of his bonus has been withdrawn and the £160,000 sum was for hitting water quality targets.

You can watch the full exchange here.

Image Credits: House of Commons / Parliament TV , Parliament TV/HOC , House of Commons/Parliament TV .

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11 COMMENTS

  1. I watched the full exchange. Very disappointed Ms Dollimore failed to ask the Southern Water CEO on the issue of compensation underpayments for the residents in Rye and surrounding areas affected by the 9 day long water outage in September/October 2023. Ms Dollimore leaves me with the recurring impression she is not as interested in nor as supportive of her constituents outside of Hastings.

    • I have observed Ms Dollimore’s canvassing ethics since she began, and was impressed with her determination to right the wrongs caused by the previous government. However, since her election as our local MP, I have to admit to disappointment in the lack of action shown in serious issues, such as child poverty, along with the difficulties experienced by people like myself, who are trying hard to manage with our State Pension as our only income and no Winter Fuel Allowance. I accept that these are difficult to deal with, but that is an MP’s job and duty.

  2. The behaviour of the water companies across the country remains shocking. Supply and quality issues after years of lack of investment are well documented. As with the rail companies, when their contracts are up the government should seriously consider bringing them back under public control. This isn’t a panacea but at least profits will remain in the system and not go to shareholders. I am pleased to read that our newly elected MP is holding Southern Water to account. She mustn’t let up.

  3. Personally, I think there should be caps on anyone’s bonuses who gets them, often not deserved, explaining it’s for hard work. What about the nurses, health workers and other service workers toiling away making society tickets and through COVID, what do they get for their hard work, peanuts.

  4. The comments by ‘Rod’ are unjust & inaccurate. Our new MP is proving to be a most effective advocate for her whole constituency – in this exchange she mentioned the Rye water outages as many times as she did those of Hastings. She pressed the CEO hard on Southern Water’s numerous failings, for which she is to be congratulated.

  5. This is very positive however it is a shame that the newly elected MP did not make reference to the fact that Winchelsea Beach residents have had to put up with sewage in their gardens and their toilets overflowing for the last 18 years. Southern Water have used tankers to tanker away excess sewage every winter for the last 18 years costing millions. This has caused no end of misery for Winchelsea Beach residents who have had to put up with massive tankers causing obstructions, damage to local roads and pavements, traffic lights and excessive noise, often all through the night. Icklesham Parish Council have tried time and time again to hold Southern Water to account with the help of previous MP Amber Rudd. IPC bought this issue to Helena Dollimore’s attention when was first elected and requested her help with taking Southern Water to task over this. This would have been a perfect opportunity for her to try and finally sort this for Winchelsea Beach. It is such a shame this opportunity was missed or does she only care about the residents of Rye?
    Winchelsea Beach resident.

  6. Eighteen years of neglect. Why didn’t Amber Rudd do something? Why didn’t Sally-Anne Hart do something? Are you saying it is our new MP’s failure? Come on….

  7. At the end of the day it’s got to be down to Southern water who’s chief executives seem happy to waste money on bonuses etc etc, instead of updating the water system,that’s where the blame should be aimed at!!

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