Thousands of people in Kent and Sussex are continuing to suffer water supply problems, as South East Water (SEW) said a number of issues were to blame, including Storm Goretti and a power cut at its pumping plant.
Some 30,000 properties across Tunbridge Wells, East Grinstead, Maidstone, Whitstable, Canterbury, and surrounding towns were without water, faced low pressure or had intermittent supplies.
The beleaguered water company apologised and said it was doing all it could to restore supplies as soon as possible.
Tunbridge Wells residents have been having issues since Tuesday, whilst those living in Maidstone and West Malling suffered no water pressure on Sunday 11th January.
Kent County Council leader Linden Kemkaran said that a “major incident” had been declared.
She added that the local authority was “putting additional arrangements in place to prepare for further potential disruption.” Several schools in Kent and Sussex were closed on Monday because of the lack of water, along with the public libraries in East Grinstead. The Queen Victoria Hospital in the town said some appointments may have to be carried out virtually.
Mike Martin, the Liberal Democrat MP for Tunbridge Wells, said that SEW needs to “get a grip” of the situation.
SEW incident manager Matthew Dean said bottled water was being delivered to customers on its priority services register, alongside care homes, schools and medical care providers.
He said “We are also supporting hospitals with tankers and providing bottled water.”
David Hinton, the chief executive of SEW, had been questioned by MPs about his handling of a water outage in the run-up to Christmas, where 24,000 customers in Kent and East Sussex were left without water for several days.
The chairman of the Environment Food and Rural Affairs Committee, Alistair Carmichael, later questioned the “accuracy and intent” of Hinton’s evidence. He called Hinton’s position “untenable”. The SEW boss, who earns a base salary of £400,000 and received a bonus of £115,000 in 2025, has faced calls to resign.
