Reassurances sought by MPs over crisis which left thousands across Horsham without water

Horsham MP Jeremy Quin and South Downs MP Andrew Griffith met with Southern Water boss Lawrence Gosden on Friday seeking confirmation that such a crisis could not recur.

The disaster led to schools closing and emergency bottled water stations set up with people in Horsham, Billinghurst, Broadbridge Heath, Pulborough, Codmore Hill, West Chiltington, Wisborough Green, Rudgwick, Loxwood, Barns Green and Slinfold affected.

Southern Water’s Hardham Water Supply Works was automatically shut down late in the evening on Friday May 12 when sampling highlighted a change in water quality. Around 25,000 homes and businesses were affected at the peak of the incident.

On Friday (October 27) Andrew Griffith and Jeremy Quin toured Hardham Water Supply Works with Southern Water chief executive Lawrence Gosden.

The MPs heard how the root cause of the outage was identified and a revised monitoring and replacement regime is now operating.

Jeremy Quin said: “The UK shares with only four other countries the accolade of having the highest quality drinking water in the world and these standards must be maintained along with the automatic shutdowns to protect them. I am pleased that the root cause of the outage has been identified and measures have been put in place to avoid a repeat and to better respond to any future incident.

“It was also good to get an update from Southern Water on the progress they are making on expanding the monitoring and reducing the impact of storm overflows. They are 98 per cent of the way there on monitoring and will shortly meet the Government's requirement of 100 per cent monitoring.

"Water quality is higher than it has been since the Industrial Revolution but there is still more that must be done and an investment plan is underway."

Andrew Griffith said: “Losing water supply during a heatwave was a big deal for residents and came on top of the very long-standing issues with storm discharges into our rivers.

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"In response to tough new environment laws the government has passed, the chief executive explained how Southern Waters’ shareholders have been forced to put money into the business to carry out the necessary investment to raise standards.”