STATEMENT: SOS Whitstable Public Meeting

01/09/2026

I'm sorry not to be able to join you for this evening’s event as today is the first day of Parliament returns after the long summer recess.

I want to say thank you to SOS Whitstable for holding another forum in which residents get to share their experiences and frustration regarding the ongoing water crisis facing our constituency. And thank you to John Halsall for starting his new role with a great deal more interaction, communication and willingness to engage with the my office and our community directly than we've experienced recently.

Frequently, we are subjected to long-tern water leaks, outages, and droughts, seemingly every time the sun appears. These recurring issues affect our daily lives in numerous ways, causing road closures, traffic delays, huge disruption to businesses, households, schools, clubs, sports associations, and increasing frustration and stress for communities.

As well as households, families, elderly people living alone; care homes and businesses who are hit by these events have to immediately press the pause button on their ability to function. Some are stuck at home, repeatedly testing their taps, with no control over the situation and no idea how long an incident may last.

I will be meeting with John Halsall in the coming days to discuss this matter further, in particular how we can prevent these incidents from constantly happening.

We deserve better; we pay for better and South East Water must deliver better.

I support the calls to take our basic utilities such as water, back to nationalisation. Government ownership and control means greater direct scrutiny from all of us who pay for it, rather than wealthy overseas corporations and shareholders who hope to profit.

I will continue to work with colleagues in Parliament for the Government to commit to this, and to restore adequate funding and sharper teeth to regulators.

We know we are facing hotter summers, further restrictions and we simply must build in greater resilience and infrastructure to this vital utility.