South East Water increasing bills by 7 per cent after repeated outagesIt comes after thousands of homes and businesses were left without waterView 2 Images South East Water staff handing out bottled water at a water station in Maidstone, after bad weather was blamed for more water outages in Kent and parts of Sussex (Image: PA Wire/PA Images)The water company responsible for repeated outages across Kent and Sussex over recent months will raise customer bills, it has been confirmed. South East Water (SEW) is raising bills by an average of seven per cent to £324 a year for its customers from April, despite currently facing a probe from Ofwat over thousands of homes and businesses being left without water. This followed a similar incident from December, where 24,000 customers across Tunbridge Wells were left without drinking water for two weeks. Household water bills across England and Wales are increasing by 5.4 per cent on average in April. The Competitions and Market Authority (CMA) will have to approve SEW's seven per cent increase in bills before it comes into force.