The Leader of Kent County Council (KCC) has announced plans to create a new strategic partnership to oversee the strategic resilience of water across the county, introducing public scrutiny and oversight across water supply, infrastructure and water quality in Kent.
The move follows a further series of water outages affecting residents and businesses across the county in recent days, reinforcing concerns about the resilience of the local water system and building on recent work by Kent County Council’s Scrutiny Committee. A Short-Focused Inquiry into recent supply failures highlighted the significant impact on communities and identified the need for stronger resilience, coordination and accountability across the system.
The strategic group, the Kent Water Resilience Partnership, to be chaired by KCC Leader Linden Kemkaran, would bring together water companies, local authorities, regulators and key partners to focus on long-term planning, performance and public visibility of how water challenges are being addressed.
Linden Kemkaran, KCC Leader, said: “People across Kent are fed up with being left without water or having their supply disrupted, sometimes for days at a time, and not getting clear answers about what’s gone wrong or when it will be fixed. That’s simply not good enough.
“I intend to set up and chair a new partnership to oversee the strategic resilience of water across Kent because residents and businesses deserve to know what is happening and what is being done about it.
“It will bring together the organisations responsible – the water companies and their regulators – into one place, where they can set out clearly how they are addressing supply issues, maintaining infrastructure, improving water quality and investing in the storage we need for the future.
“At the moment, responsibility is too fragmented and there is no single place where the whole system is being looked at. This partnership intends to change that. It will shine a light on the issues affecting Kent and make sure there is clear, open scrutiny of how those responsible are responding.
“We do not have direct powers over water companies or regulators, and it’s important to be clear about that. But we do have a responsibility to stand up for Kent – bringing the right people into the room and making sure there is clear public visibility of how these issues are being addressed.
“I want people to be able to see what’s being done and have confidence that they can rely on safe, clean water when they need it.”
Further details about the partnership are currently being developed and will be published in the coming weeks.