Water Supplies Restored to 6,500 Homes in Kent and Sussex

After Six-Day Outage

Water supplies are finally being restored to some homes in Kent and Sussex – after almost a week of chaos. Around 6,500 homes will have their taps running again after a grueling six-day outage – which has caused outrage at utility South East Water (SEW). The company blames the outage, which has affected 30,000 homes since Saturday, on Storm Goretti, which burst pipes and knocked out power.

Cause of the Outage and Investigation

The outage led to a probe by water regulator Ofwat – Hundreds still suffer from low water pressure. The troubled water company was heavily criticized by the public as the outage was caused by a disaster similar incident last month, when 24,000 houses were affected. A serious incident was reported by SEW and Kent County Council on Monday, but not by East Sussex County Councils or West Sussex County Councils.

Restoration of Water Supply

On Friday, SEW incident manager said: “Water supply to the 6,500 properties in the Tunbridge Wells area has now been restored.” Some customers may be experiencing low pressure as water levels continue to rise across the region’s pipeline network this morning. Continuous supply to the city was restored after implementing a recovery plan, which included shutting down local booster pumps for 36 hours to allow drinking water storage to fill.

Apology to Affected Customers

The company is very sorry for each and every one of its affected customers. They know and understand how difficult it is to go without water for such a long period of time and how difficult it makes everyday life. Earlier this week, affected elderly residents expressed their frustration, saying they were losing their “cool” and that they couldn’t believe they had no water.

Ongoing Issues and Investigation

Ofwat’s investigation will examine whether the supplier breached its license terms by failing to meet commitments to customer service standards and failing to provide appropriate support to affected customers. If the regulator decides that SEW has breached the conditions, its license could be revoked. In the Kent village of Bidborough, 320 homes are still affected by low water levels. Bottled water locations will remain open today “as an abundance of caution,” the company said.