Tens of thousands of people across South East England are without water, as Kent County Council (KCC) has declared a major incident.
Both Southern Water and South East Water (SEW) – which supply parts of Kent, Surrey and Sussex – said cold weather brought by Storm Goretti and a power cut at pumping plants were to blame for the outages.
Linden Kemkaran, leader of KCC, declared a major incident across the county on Monday, saying more households have been impacted in the last 24 hours.
“We are putting additional arrangements in place to prepare for further potential disruption,” she said in a statement on X.
The issue has forced a number of schools in Kent and Sussex to close on the first day of the week.
It comes after 24,000 properties in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, spent days without any running water, and almost two weeks without drinkable water last month.
Here is what you need to know.
Where is affected?
Currently, around 30,000 properties across the two counties are impacted, South East Water said in a statement to Sky News.
“This includes 16,500 properties in East Grinstead and the surrounding areas in Sussex, with parts of Tunbridge Wells also affected, along with some localised issues in other parts of Kent,” the company said.
At the time of writing 11 postcodes across four areas are still experiencing little to no water supply, according to the SEW website. These include:
• Maidstone
• West Sussex and surrounding areas
• Tunbridge Wells
• Canterbury
• Whitstable
SEW said supplies to East Grinstead, West Sussex, and Blean, Maidstone, are not expected to return until Tuesday.
Southern Water said on 11 January that households in Thanet, Sittingbourne, Medway and surrounding areas are currently not experiencing a loss of water supply, but some drinking water storage reservoirs are at low levels due to Storm Goretti.
The company said this could mean there is a “higher risk of supply issues in the coming days” but it is “taking action now to do all we can to prevent that”.
What caused the problem?
SEW said Storm Goretti, which hit the UK last week, affected its ability to “treat the raw water at the normal rate at our main Sussex water treatment works”.
It said this, coupled with the outbreak of burst water mains due to freezing conditions across Sussex, means its drinking water storage levels are running low.
SEW incident manager Mike Court said: “We’re sorry to our customers across Kent and Sussex who are experiencing issues with their drinking water supply, including no water, intermittent supply interruptions or low pressure.”
He said water treatment works continue to operate at full capacity and tankers are “pumping water directly into the storage tanks and network to increase the amount of water available in the affected areas”.
Repair teams are also working “around the clock” to fix leaks and bursts, Mr Court said.
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Where are bottled water stations located?
Multiple bottled water stations have been set up in the area to distribute water to local residents until supplies are fully restored.
SEW said its customer care team is also delivering bottled water to the customers on our Priority Services Register who are most in need and we have carried out 5,700 deliveries of bottled water over the weekend.
The company said the following stations are open until 10pm:
• Kings Centre – Moat Rd, East Grinstead RH19 3LN
• East Grinstead Sports Club – Saint Hill Rd, East Grinstead RH19 4JU
• East Court, College Lane, East Grinstead, West Sussex RH19 3LT
