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.

However it boosted its bottom line after reducing its finance costs by nearly a quarter to £37.5 million.

It missed its target of averaging less than 11 minutes interruption per property for the year, which it put down to a “significant” bursting of a 40-year-old 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 in new and existing assets, including the installation of a new 7km pipeline between Leybourne Lakes Country Park near Maidstone and the water treatment works at Burham, near Blue Bell Hill.

Chairman Nick Salmon said the board is pleased with the business performance “but recognises that continued improvement will be required to address the challenges and achieve our ambitions over the coming years”.

He said: “We believe we have the right management team in place, supported by a great team of people at both South East Water and our key business partners, to deliver on our plans, both now and in the longer term, to the benefit of today’s and tomorrow’s customers.”