One of the first actions of new Green Council Leader Julia Hilton on her election in May was to call Southern Water to council to face questions on their performance. Yesterday evening CEO Lawrence Godsen and three other senior representatives attended a meeting with the public and councillors for the first time. Julia said, “As soon as I became leader, this was the first thing I wanted to do. I’m pleased they came to face the music.”
Julia continues, “Unfortunately, despite us pre-submitting our questions to Southern Water, the presentation they gave was surface-level stuff we could find on their website. They have promised to return in three months with an actual detailed plan for Hastings.”
Following their presentation, the team were questioned for two hours by members of the public and councillors. Green Deputy Leader Glenn Haffenden asked them about the compensation Southern Water promised to provide residents following the water outage, while Green Cllr Becca Horn questioned them on compensation still not received by some residents post-flooding, and why they had failed to maintain the water supply pipe decades ago when planning was approved.
Julia criticised them further for not anticipating such events. “What’s concerning is that these disasters always seem to come as a surprise to you,” she pointed out.
Following the meeting, Julia commented, “We had over 150 questions submitted by the public. I think Southern Water were shocked by the amount. I would like to thank all the residents who gave up their time to write in, and for members of the council and public for attending and asking such excellent questions. Any left unanswered are being forwarded to their team.”
Julia continues, “We as a council are united. We shall continue to hold Southern Water to account. Tonight they promised to deliver the report on their survey of Alexandra Park Stream by the end of August, and a full, detailed investment plan for Hastings by October. They have also promised to pay for the roll-out of 5,700 smart water butts, look into individual residents’ cases of compensation for flooding, and uphold their pledge of £120,000 compensation for our festivals and events impacted by the outage in May.”
“This is a start – but much more is needed. We must have reassurance that they understand their own system, that they know where potential issues are and that they have a detailed plan to shore up our town against future flooding, outages and devastating sewage pollution.”