South East Water supply disruption hits thousands of properties in Kent

People in Tunbridge Wells area face lower pressure, intermittent supply or no water after ‘instrument failure’

Thousands of homes and businesses in Kent are facing water supply problems for a second day, including a “complete lack of water” in some cases, South East Water said.

About 7,000 properties in the Tunbridge Wells area could face low pressure, intermittent supply or no water, after an “instrument failure” at a nearby water treatment works, SEW said.

On Sunday morning the company said it was “on target” for supplies to return that evening “at the earliest” and apologised to those affected. Bottled water stations were open in the town for a second day.

Apologising to customers, the SEW incident manager, Steve Benton, said: “We are genuinely sorry to all customers currently experiencing low pressure, intermittent supply, or a complete lack of water today (Sunday 19 July).

“This is not the service we aim to provide, and is not the service our customers deserve.”

He added: “The levels in our drinking water storage tanks are improving. However, we want to ensure that once supplies return to customers, this will be a stable, continuous flow.

“To do this, we need to allow our storage tanks to replenish to a higher level than they currently are, we are still on target to see water supplies return later this evening at the earliest.”

The company said bottled water stations would be open until 8pm on Sunday at the Tesco superstore on Pembury Road in Tunbridge Wells, and at Tunbridge Wells Rugby Football Club at St Mark’s recreation ground.

SEW is using tankers to increase drinking water storage levels to support the affected areas and delivering bottled water to customers on its priority services register.

On Friday the company, which supplies water to about 2.3 million customers in south-east England, warned there was “material uncertainty” over its survival, after a disastrous year in which the loss-making company paid millions of pounds in fines and its chief executive was forced out.

Its annual report said it needed to secure fresh financing to stay afloat after taking a £55m hit from outages over the winter. It was in discussions with lenders to agree a new loan facility.

It has enough cash to keep going until July 2027 but said that “shortly after” it would need to secure more financing.

Earlier last week it was ordered to pay a £30.5m penalty after investigations by the industry watchdog Ofwat over previous supply interruptions that affected hundreds of thousands of households across Kent and Sussex.