South East Water requests referral of its Final Determination to the Competition and Markets Authority for a redetermination.

South East Water (SEW) today (18 February 2025) announced that it has asked Ofwat to refer its PR24 Final Determination to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) for review. 

The PR24 Business plan remains the company's most ambitious plan ever. It detailed a proposed investment of £1.9bn over five years with goals to improve customer service, reduce customer supply interruptions and strengthen network resilience.

In the Final Determination, the Board believes that the response does not address our company specific circumstances and external challenges, such as concerns over water security for our customers and climate change resilience. 

The Board of SEW is unanimous in its conclusion to seek the only redress it now has available in the regulatory process, being an independent review by the CMA.

Commenting on the decision, Chairman, Chris Train said:

"Asking for the Final Determination to be referred to the Competition and Markets Authority for redetermination is not a decision we took lightly. We have scrutinised the Final Determination and agree unanimously that in its current format, it presents a risk to water security for our customers in the region."

ENDS

Media enquiries: Rob Crumbie, South East Water ([email protected])

Financial enquiries: James Grant, South East Water ([email protected])

About South East Water

South East Water supplies top-quality drinking water to 2.3 million customers across the south east of England. Our teams work hard to keep taps flowing across parts of Hampshire, Berkshire, Surrey, Sussex and Kent. Through a network of 9,000 miles of pipe, we deliver 544 million litres of water every day. 

To supply our customers, we draw water from more than 250 boreholes, six rivers and six reservoirs. This water is treated at one of our 88 treatment works.

We carry out more than one million water quality tests a year at our state-of-the-art laboratory in Hampshire, on up to 750 different water samples taken daily from treatment works, storage reservoirs, customers' own taps and other commercial activities.

Our customers rely on a secure supply of our natural resource - water. That's why we see our role as guardians of the environment.

For further information, please visit https://www.southeastwater.co.uk/