Water firms failed to supply bottles to thousands during freeze

Two water companies failed to adequately supply bottled water to thousands of customers cut off during freeze thaw events over the winter.

Ofwat has told South East and Southern Water that they must “make significant improvements” to their emergency response procedures after supply failures in December 2022.

The regulator’s order comes following an investigation into the freeze thaw events which affected all regions last winter. The extensive customer disruption was the most severe freeze thaw event experienced since 2018’s Beast from the East.

In its investigation response, Ofwat states that “most companies had learned some key lessons from the 2018 freeze-thaw event and had taken action to improve their response to incidents”.

However, the regulator’s report adds that as “such variable weather conditions will be increasingly the norm in future” more must be done to “better understand and anticipate the risks of future climate change impacts”.

In particular, Ofwat has called out Southern and South East for failing customers.

“South East Water particularly requires improvements in its planning and preparedness, and both South East Water and Southern Water require improvements in their provision of bottled water in response to loss of supply,” the report adds.

“Ofwat is continuing to investigate South East Water’s handling of the event and is gathering further information to get to the bottom of what happened.

“We are not satisfied with the information South East Water has provided so far and we are requiring more detail as to what went wrong and what it will do to better protect customers in the future.

“If we do not get a satisfactory response, we will not hesitate to take further action.”

South East was hit by two freeze thaw events during December 2022, cutting off thousands of households.

The Emergency Planning Guidance states that it is the company’s responsibility to ensure all impacted customers are able to obtain the minimum amount of water during an incident and that all companies should base their plans for alternative water on their local context and population.

However, in its assessment published earlier this month (May 2023), the Drinking Water Inspectorate (DWI) found that South East set up just one bottled water station for one of the freeze thaw events. The inspectorate also criticised South East for setting up the water station in a busy carpark the week before Christmas.

The Inspectorate also criticised South East for failing to protect its most vulnerable customers. In its assessment, the Inspectorate reveals that South East was “not able to deliver bottled water to those consumers on their priority services list within 24 hours as required by the Emergency Planning Guidance”.

It adds: “South East Water organised its PSR consumers by priority due to need with only ‘tier 1’ consumers receiving the minimum amount within 24 hours and deliveries being made for remaining customers the following day.

“The Inspectorate Recommends that companies ensure all vulnerable customers receive alternative water in the timescales stated within the EPG, and furthermore that these deliveries are recorded to enable verification that the requirements have been met.”

In its response to Ofwat, South East estimates that over 700,000 litres of bottled water were deployed to its customers during the incident, “which is far greater than any previous incident the organisation has ever experienced”.

However, it adds that “all resources whether it be people, bottled water, and logistics were stretched throughout the incident”.

“We found it difficult to maintain resources to keep a direct delivery service of bottled water flowing effectively. This was due to the scale of the event being much wider than we had experienced before,” it adds.

The company response adds that issues with its supplier Water Direct meant that it “was hard to know exact times of when bottled water would be restocked [which] made it difficult for volunteers at the bottled water stations to communicate effectively with customers and on a limited number of occasions customers found the stations had run out of bottled water.”

The company response also states that it “appealed to other water companies for mutual aid (bottled water, drivers, tankers and lorries), however due to the nationwide nature of the incident we could only source 90 pallets of water from Thames Water”.

Southern, meanwhile, was hit by one freeze thaw event affecting up to 44,000 households.

The company set up six bottled water stations in response, however the DWI ruled that “these were some distance away from affected consumers in the South of the region”.

The DWI report adds: “The Inspectorate also Recommends that companies critically review their local reasonable worst-case scenarios.

“This should include reviewing the potential scale of an incident, but also a worst-case scenario in response to an incident. It was clear that a number of the events reviewed were larger than the company’s reasonable worst-case scenario.

“Large scale events should also be built into the testing and exercise schedule,” the report adds.

Following discussions with Ofwat, Southern Water has committed to make significant improvements to its approach to supplying bottled water during supply interruptions.

A Southern Water spokesperson added: “When we are unable to maintain supply in a significant incident, we mobilise people from across the company, 24/7 to get bottled water to customers and to get supply back.

“In this particular case, we have since held the first of a regular cadence of meetings with MPs and local authority leaders across Hampshire, listening and learning to improve handling of supply interruptions and build better community relationships.

“We have also started testing how we deploy more robust back-up solutions such as ‘Aqua Cubes’ to ensure that farmers with livestock get the water they need in difficult circumstances”.

In partnership with CCW, Ofwat is commencing research on customer experiences of water and wastewater incidents, including supply interruptions.

The regulator is also consulting on introducing a customer-focused condition into companies’ licenses, to provide a clear regulatory basis in relation to how companies treat their customers, including customers in vulnerable circumstances.

Earlier this week, United Utilities said the cost of responding to the freeze thaw event was partly to blame for a dip in the company’s profits.