Water fights are supposed to be fun – but the anger, indignation, and exasperation in Tunbridge Wells mean this one will be feisty.
“They have left us in water limbo,” organiser Jonathan Hawker told a packed bar of over 100 residents on Wednesday night.
“And that’s no way to live in 2026.”
It was the first big public meeting led by Dry Wells Action – a newly established community fightback group.
They’ve had over three years of disrupted water supplies in Kent and East Sussex that have come to a head this winter.
Although most people are now reconnected, lengthy outages in December and January mean residents fear further water cuts are just inevitable.
They did invite South East Water (SEW) to come along, but they failed to send anyone.
“Their communications are just tragic,” one businessman noted, “but you all know that!”
“It’s very disappointing SEW didn’t send a representative here to speak to the community – that’s the least they could have done,” Syed Ahmed said.
Mr Ahmed is a consultant hip surgeon who told the meeting he’d had to cancel NHS clinics because his children’s schools had to close with hardly any notice.
“I’ve had to choose between managing my kids and clinical services – and I have had to cancel clinics. The impact is absolutely horrendous.
“It’s impacted people who are suffering in pain – who have had appointments rescheduled or surgeries rescheduled – I’m hoping it hasn’t cost lives – but we will find out soon.”
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People want answers, transparency, and accountability – again they called for the chief executive of SEW to resign.
The last they heard from under-fire boss David Hinton, who has a basic annual salary of £400,000, was when he was obliged to appear before MPs earlier this month.
Much to the irritation of his customers, he rated his company’s performance 8/10 for incident response and 6/10 for communications.
‘COVID vibes’
At Skinner’s Academy in Tunbridge Wells the principal, Hannah Knowles, told Sky News her rating would be zero “or in minus numbers”.
She has spent £6,000 to bring several blocks of portable toilets onto the school site so they can assure students that their mock exams will go ahead this week.
While we were filming, messages came through of another potential water cut. Miss Knowles quickly went to check the taps in one part of the school.
“This is just what I do now – check the water,” she said.
“There are COVID vibes around needing to adapt quickly and being resilient.”
Ms Knowles estimates the total cost in contingency measures and lost measures is £20,000.
“If SEW have got the audacity to not provide us that money back they are literally taking money from young people,” she said.
‘We haven’t been given a solution’
Compensation has been promised to residential customers, but she is expecting SEW to make it difficult for her.
Year 13 student Doris Waugh told Sky News: “They are treating us a little bit like idiots, they will throw technical language in our faces and tell us about the problems, but we haven’t been given a single solution.”
It’s deeper than frustration; this kind of water pressure has created a drumbeat for change in this affluent corner of Kent.
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‘It’s going to get worse’
One of the founder members of the Dry Wells campaign group, Jo Dobson, told Sky News: “It is going to get worse, it is not just investing in the infrastructure, it needs a complete overhaul.
“I do think if we can effect the first change here in Kent and Tunbridge Wells the rest of the country can follow suit.”
While the government has outlined plans for a new regulator and tougher checks on water companies, the calls for more radical change, including taking water companies back into public ownership, are growing louder – not least in and around Tunbridge Wells.
Sky News has approached SEW for an interview.
