Water outages hit 4,500 houses in Kent days after mass disruption

South East Water (SEW) said the disruption was caused by an electrical fault at a treatment works.

Several villages around Maidstone are experiencing water supply issues.

Incident manager Matthew Dean said: "We're sorry to customers currently impacted by the water supply interruptions across our network in Kent."

"We have resolved this issue, and are refilling the pipes slowly and carefully. We expect supplies to return later today."

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Around 320 properties in the Bidborough area of Tunbridge Wells are without water since Wednesday.

"The Bidborough area is currently with intermittent supplies and low pressure. We expect supplies here to return to normal on Monday morning," Dean added.

SEW said a walk-in bottled water collection point is available at Bidborough Village Hall, Bidborough Ride, Bidborough, TN3 0XD.

SEW said bottled water stations for the most recent disruption are open from 09:00 GMT on Sunday:

• Mote Park Leisure Centre, Mote Park, Maidstone, ME15 7RN
• Headcorn Aerodrome, Shenley Rd, Ashford TN27 9HX
• Harrietsham Village Hall, Church Road, Harrietsham, Maidstone ME17 1AP, which is a walk-in collection point

Mr Dean told LBC: "A fault at a treatment works has caused water supply issues in several rural areas around Maidstone, affecting around 4,500 properties, predominantly in Harrietsham, Kingswood and the surrounding villages. We have resolved this issue, and are refilling the pipes slowly and carefully."

He added: “We are sorry to affected customers in the Bidborough area, where around 320 properties in are currently experiencing intermittent supplies and low pressure. We are using tankers to support the local network and we expect supplies here to return to normal tomorrow morning (Monday, 19 January)."

“Elsewhere, tankers are still being used to inject water into storage tanks across Kent to continue balancing the network.

“Our leak repair teams are working around the clock to fix the leaks and bursts across Kent and Sussex, with extra resources available to help carry out repairs.

“Customers can keep up to date with live issues via our website and using our interactive map. 

“Once again, we’re sorry to any customers affected by the supply issues.”

Ofwat announced on Thursday that they are launching an investigation into whether the supplier had breached its licence condition by failing to comply with customer service standards obligations and offering appropriate support to affected customers during supply interruptions.

If the regulator decides South East Water (SEW) has breached the conditions and should be stripped of the licence, the supplier could fall into a special administration regime until a new buyer was found.

Water came back to homes across Kent and Sussex on Friday after almost a week of disruption.

SEW blamed the outage, which began on Saturday, on Storm Goretti causing burst pipes and power cuts.

At the height of the incident, the company reported that 30,000 customers across the two counties were without water, or experiencing low water pressure.

The beleaguered water firm has faced heavy criticism from MPs and the public as the outage came on the heels of a similar incident last month, where 24,000 people in Tunbridge Wells were left without drinking water for two weeks.

On Friday, SEW’s incident manager Mathew Dean said: “Water supplies have now been restored to the 6,500 properties in Tunbridge Wells area.

“Some customers may be experiencing low pressure as the water levels continue to build this morning throughout the area’s pipeline network.

“Continuous supplies have been restored to the town after we implemented our recovery plan which involved keeping local booster pumps switched off for 36 hours so our drinking water storage tank could fill.

“We are very sorry to every single one of our customers who have been affected.

“We know and understand how difficult going without water for such a long period of time is and how difficult it makes everyday life.”