Despite South East Water’s assertions to the contrary, periods of peak demand and extreme weather can and should be broadly predicted and prepared for. Ofwat and the Drinking Water Inspectorate have shown that the company failed to model upcoming peaks and troughs and take the necessary steps in preceding weeks and months to boost resilience and reduce the risk of a crisis. Its leadership’s approach to incident response planning is pitiful; there are signs that incident response plans either do not exist or are of poor quality, receiving little or no stress-testing to improve them. The recent experience of its customers, as well as an overreliance on external support, are testament to this lack of planning. This has had real-world consequences for tens of thousands of customers, many of them vulnerable. (Conclusion, Paragraph 30)