South East Water warns over survival as funds dry up

Supplier to 2.4m customers says it doesn’t have enough money to last beyond July 2027 South East Water has warned there is “material uncertainty” over its survival, after a disastrous year in which the lossmaking company paid millions of pounds in fines and its chief executive was forced out. The water supplier to 2.4 million customers said it had sufficient funds to make it through to July 2027. However, “shortly after” the utility will need “new loan facilities in order to continue as a going concern”, it said in its annual report published on Friday. South East Water, which serves customers across Kent, Sussex, Surrey, Hampshire and Berkshire, added that “discussions with lenders to provide funds are at an advanced stage and are expected to conclude over summer 2026” but were not legally committed. The company has gone through one of its worst years since privatisation in 1989, with a series of outages that infuriated customers and politicians. Its chair, Chris Train was forced to resign, while the chief executive, David Hinton, has also promised to step down after months of heavy criticism over the company’s response to major supply failures in Kent and Sussex between November