Lead

Hundreds of homes in Kent and Sussex have been left without water during a period of record temperatures, prompting South East Water to ask customers to use water only for essential purposes. The company attributed the outages to increased demand caused by the hot weather.

Coverage Comparison

Reports from The Guardian detail the scale of the outages. About 800 properties in the Kent villages of Charing, Challock and Molash were unable to get water on Sunday, and around 168 homes were thought to be affected in Eastbourne, East Sussex, on Sunday afternoon. At least 250 homes remained without water on Monday.

In a separate incident, 8,000 South East Water customers in Whitstable lost water, with 14,000 more in Tankerton, Ashford, and surrounding areas facing intermittent supply or low pressure. The company's incident manager, Matthew Dean, said on Thursday that 22,000 people had had water supply problems.

South East Water said the hot weather and extra demand meant it was having to pump more drinking water than usual to higher ground. On Monday, 670 million litres of drinking water was used across the company's supply area – almost 100 million litres more than the average for this time of year. The company has not imposed a temporary use ban, which would prohibit using a hosepipe to fill paddling pools, water the garden, or wash the car.

Key Claims

  • South East Water asked customers to use water only for drinking, washing and cooking, and to avoid using jet washers, hosepipes, and sprinklers.
  • Matthew Dean said the extreme temperatures had caused demand to surge, while storage reservoirs were running low in several parts of Kent. He stated that the company had planned for the heat by increasing output at treatment works and using tankers to add water to the network.
  • A report by the Consumer Council for Water (CCW) found that South East Water failed to adequately communicate with customers during outages last winter. Fewer than one in 10 customers were satisfied with how the company handled the crisis, which affected tens of thousands of people across Kent and Sussex.
  • The winter disruption included a water quality failure at the Pembury treatment works in November and December, leading to a precautionary boil-water notice, and later shortages affecting about 69,000 properties in January.
  • The government aims to cut water use in England by 20% per person a day by 2038, and to reduce average consumption to 110 litres per person a day by 2050.

Perspectives

South East Water

The company blamed increased demand for the outages and asked customers to space out heavy water use. In a social media post, it said reservoirs were healthy and there was no shortage of water, but that simultaneous use of hoses could cause pressure drops and leave homes at the top of hills dry.

Affected Customers

Customers expressed frustration with the company's response. Pat Prestage, a Whitstable resident with a disability, described feeling “spitting, fuming, angry and powerless.” Her husband, Martin, said they could not get through to the emergency line and queued over an hour for water. He questioned why the system was not built to cope with such events, saying, “They say the extreme hot weather means the system can’t cope, but what sort of system is it that goes offline like it has for us for 20 hours?”

Consumer Council for Water

Mike Keil, chief executive of CCW, said the research “lays bare the scale of disruption inflicted on the lives of tens of thousands of South East Water customers last winter.” He added that when responses fall short, they can make a bad situation worse, and that the most damaging legacy was the loss of confidence in the safety and reliability of drinking water.

MPs

MPs accused South East Water’s senior executives of incompetence over repeated water outages for tens of thousands of customers.