South East Water Business Plan 2025-2030

Every five years, we review our Business Plan so our priorities align with yours

As of 18 February 2026, we have asked Ofwat to refer their Final Determination of the company’s PR24 Business plan to the Competition and Markets Authority for a redetermination.

Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) update - 27 March 2026

The overall outcome of the appeal is expected to provide over £100 million of additional funding for South East Water, including increased resilience funding which will give us greater ability to invest directly in our network. With this additional funding, it means we can proceed with what will be the largest investment programme in the company’s history.

We particularly welcome the funding support for the Bewl Water Treatment Works scheme, including around £30 million to progress this game-changing project. We have already made significant progress connecting into Bewl, and this funding will now enable the additional treatment and transfer capacity needed to fully utilise the site, including the Bewl-Cottage Hill pipeline we began building 18 months ago. This will help us balance supplies across Sussex and parts of Kent, providing a better service for our communities across the region.

As we set out in our original Business Plan, we sought additional funding with the help of our customers to improve resilience, across our networks which are tested during extreme weather, meet rising demand in a water-stressed region, and deliver the infrastructure and technology needed for long-term water security.

The performance targets and financial incentives remain stretching, and we still anticipate the next five years to be a challenging period. Our focus is now getting the investment to areas where it is needed and making clear changes that can be felt by our customers and the communities South East Water is here to serve.

We have submitted our most ambitious five-year plan ever to Ofwat with an investment into the infrastructure of £1.9 billion*.

We recognise that our ability to supply customers during extreme weather events has been challenged, and we have not provided the service we should have done.

This plan addresses those issues head-on with a locally researched, representative, and cost-effective proposal that will make great strides towards providing you with the public water service you expect and deserve.

We have included in the plan a significant investment into the network to improve customer service, reduce customer supply interruptions and strengthen network resilience.

This level of investment will mean an increase in customer’s bills. While increasing bills is never welcome, investment in our water system is essential to ensure the security of our water supply in the future. Using the Ofwat investment methodology, we believe that delivery of this plan will see bills rise on average from £19.33 a month in 2025 to £23.12 a month by 2030.

The funds raised are guaranteed only to fund improvements in our water systems -and if these improvements aren’t delivered, bills will automatically be reduced.

We believe this is the right plan which will allow us to:

Invest in providing new sustainable water resources for the regions, such as a new reservoir at Broad Oak, near Canterbury – which is planned for completion by 2033.
Improve network resilience by making the most efficient connections in our networks to enable us to move water around more effectively. This will allow us to provide the public water service more efficiently in areas of recent challenge, such as near the end of networks.
Increase the capacity of drinking water storage available in the right locations, to improve resilience and provide a greater buffer to reduce supply interruptions.
Work with customers – both household and non-household to reduce the amount of water that is being used at home and in businesses. We will commence a smart meter roll out in this business cycle which will see 275,000 meters implemented, with the roll out completed by 2035.
Implement a smart water network with a comprehensive roll out of additional meters, sensors, and loggers. This allows for dynamic management of the network to reduce leakage and improve resilience.
Use other innovations to drive down leakage even further, reducing the amount of drinking water lost through leaks and burst mains. Historically, we have been one of the best performers in the water industry on reducing leaks, achieving our regulatory target in 14 of the last 15 years.
Work with partners to improve the quality of raw water entering our catchments. We want to continue and enhance the work started in the last business plan to improve the quality of river water in our region.
Build three new nitrate treatment plants to address increasing nutrient levels in the raw water, that will breach nitrate trigger levels before catchment solutions are able to mitigate and reverse the trends seen.
Provide additional resources required to respond to unplanned supply interruptions, giving us more options to support all customers and return the mains supply.
Continue to deliver excellent drinking water quality.
And all of this will be achieved whilst ensuring that we tackle water poverty, increasing the support we give to vulnerable customers through a new six-point plan. We want to remove water poverty altogether by 2030.