Hundreds of homes in Kent and Sussex were left without water over the weekend after supply outages hit villages and towns across the South East. The disruption began on Saturday and had still not been fully resolved by Monday, with some customers in Kent relying on bottled supplies while others waited for deliveries.
In the Kent villages of Charing, Challock and Molash, about 800 properties were unable to get water on Sunday, while about 168 homes were thought to be affected in Eastbourne, East Sussex, that afternoon. South East Water said hot weather and extra demand meant it was pumping far more drinking water than usual to higher ground, and later said there had been a technical failure at its pumping station near Charing.
Steve Benton, speaking for the company, said it was sorry to customers in parts of Kent who had experienced low pressure or no water intermittently through the weekend. He said around 250 properties in the Charing, Challock and Molash areas had been affected by water supply problems, including low pressure or no water, and linked the disruption to the failure at the pumping station near Charing, which made it harder to push water to properties on higher ground.
By Monday, at least 250 homes remained without water. South East Water said a bottled-water station had reopened at Challock village hall and that deliveries were being made to some customers who could not get there themselves. In Whitstable, water supplies to 64 properties were also affected overnight after a separate technical problem with booster pumps.
The latest outages come as the company faces sustained pressure over repeated failures. MPs this month said South East Water had subjected tens of thousands of customers to repeated outages, and the company is facing a £22m fine from Ofwat over serious disruptions to supply over many years. David Hinton has said he will step down after the MPs' report, and the group's chair has also quit.
South East Water said its reservoirs were healthy and there was no shortage of water, even as it warned that heavy use at the same time could drop pressure in parts of the network. It told customers that the recent hot weather had pushed demand higher and said common summer habits such as hoses and other large water tasks at the same time could leave homes at the top of hills running dry.
The immediate question for customers is not whether the company understands the problem. It is whether the network can keep up the next time temperatures rise and demand jumps again, because the latest outages show how quickly a local fault can leave hundreds of homes waiting for water.
