£46.5m leap in profits for water firm

South East Water grew its profits by nearly 50% to £46.5 million as it missed its target for disruption to customers’ supply.

The company, which covers the majority of Kent, saw its revenues fall marginally to £214.4 million and operating profit slipped 6.2% to £74.8 million.

It reduced its finance costs by nearly a quarter to £37.5 million.

The company missed its target of averaging less than 11 minutes interruption per property for the year, which it put down to a bursting of a 40-yearold underground supply main in Hailsham, East Sussex.

It beat its leakage goal of 91.8 million litres per day, with 88.1 million litres lost each day.

During the year the company invested £89.2 million and this included a new 7km pipeline between Leybourne Lakes Country Park in Snodland and the water treatment works at Burham, near Blue Bell Hill.

Chairman Nick Salmon said the company recognised continued improvement would be needed to address the challenges in future years.