South East Water told to improve as villagers brand outage issues ‘shocking’

Customers in Kent have been warned that water levels in its drinking storage tanks remain ‘critically low’.

A water company has been told to improve after thousands of customers faced supply issues once again and some branded the handling as “shocking”.

South East Water has warned its customers in Kent that water levels in its drinking storage tanks remain “critically low” as the firm urged them to only use water for “essential” purposes following the incident.

Supply had been restored to 7,400 properties in Herne Bay, Rough Common and Blean by Tuesday morning, but 400 homes were still facing low pressure or no water.

Villagers in Benenden, in Kent, told Press Association around 60 to 70 residents staged a protest with plastic bottles of water spelled out on the green on Monday evening reading: “Help us”.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said another disruption for South East Water (SEW) customers was “simply not good enough”.

A Defra spokesperson said: “South East Water needs to go further and faster to reduce leaks and follow their drought plans to ensure supplies are not disrupted in even the driest of weather.

“Their new leadership must now deliver a step change in performance, where customers’ needs are prioritised and there is a stop to supply outages.”

It is the latest in a string of incidents SEW customers have faced, and Weald of Kent MP Katie Lam, whose constituency includes the areas still impacted by the supply issues, said outages have become “depressingly common”.

In July, 7,000 homes in the Tunbridge Wells area had supply issues because of a failure at a treatment works.

In Benenden in Kent on Tuesday morning, bottled water could be seen left outside houses while a South East Water van was also spotted driving through the village.

At The Bull At Benenden pub, one resident Nicola Stanway had come in after not receiving a delivery, and has been out of water since Thursday.

The 51-year-old said: “This morning I haven’t received any deliveries of water so been reliant on coming here and using Lucy’s (pub landlord) water.

“But we have seen lots of houses around here that are empty with bottled water, it’s ridiculously distributed, it’s not been well planned or orchestrated at all.”

Of how South East Water has been dealing with the outage, the estate agent said: “It’s disappointing, it’s frustrating, the amount of excuses, every couple of days it’s something different.”

Residents organised to meet out on the green on Monday evening to stage a protest, collecting all the plastic water bottles they have been using, as Ms Stanway said everyone in the village wants to be heard and have a voice.

Pub owner Lucy Barron-Reid said the protest of around 60 to 70 people was to prove a point how much people use plastic bottled water for basic washes, going to the toilet, cooking, cleaning and looking after animals.

For her business, she said: “Apart from Covid this is the hardest thing we have had to deal with.

“Over the last few years we have had sporadic water outages and this year has become really severe, which has been extremely difficult to run a business.”

She said they made the decision to remain open since losing water last Thursday to avoid joining the statistics of pubs that close down.

The pub landlady of 22 years said the handling from South East Water is “absolutely shocking” and as a business in the outages they have to buy their own water from a different company.

“But our community has stepped in,” the 56-year-old said, adding it is getting to the point they have not got water either.

“Everyone’s a bit stuffed. It’s just really exhausting mentally and physically,” she said.

“It really is very scary, a couple of times on Saturday I got very upset and very tearful, I don’t want to do this anymore.”

South East Water’s incident manager, Mike Court, said on Tuesday that drinking water supplies have been restores to 7,400 properties  in the Herne Bay, Rough Common and Blean areas of Kent, which were experiencing “no water or intermittent supplies” yesterday.

He added: “However, properties in Herne Bay may experience intermittent supplies later today due to high demand for drinking water in the area as the storage tank which supplies the area remains at a critical level.

“Approximately 400 properties in the Benenden, Cranbrook and Rolvenden areas of Kent are continuing to experience low pressure or no water this morning.”

Ms Lam criticised the “depressingly common” outages as “simply not good enough”.

“People rightly expect that when they turn on the tap, water comes out.

“They should not have to plan their lives around the latest South East Water outage,” the MP said.

“South East Water needs fundamental transformation — the new leadership team recognise this, and they will need to move fast to achieve the reliable service people rightly demand.”

In July, SEW was ordered to pay £30.5 million after investigations by industry watchdog Ofwat following previous supply interruptions affecting hundreds of thousands of households across Kent and Sussex.

Ofwat said the redress package concluded three investigations into the supplier and includes a previously proposed £22 million fine for water supply failures between 2020 and 2023, which impacted more than 286,000 people.

The regulator launched a second probe at the start of this year after more supply interruptions in Tunbridge Wells and across Kent and Sussex between November and January, which left up to 70,000 homes without water.

“After years of failure, we have taken swift action to hold water companies to account,” the Defra spokesperson added.

“We have banned unfair water boss bonuses and will establish a new, single regulator with greater powers to drive transparency, helping to rebuild customer trust and protect the environment.”

SEW said on Tuesday bottled water stations, including at the Weald Sports Centre in Cranbrook and Sturry Road Park and Ride in Canterbury would be open until 10pm for customers affected by the latest incident.

A spokesperson said staff and contractors had been subject to abuse in recent days.

“Whilst we understand the frustrations due to the current disruption, our team is working to restore supplies and deliver water to customers,” the spokesperson said.

“We do not tolerate any abuse towards our staff and the safety of our staff and contractors is paramount.”