Joshua Askew & Stuart Maisner,South Eastand
Michael Keohan,in Tunbridge Wells
PA Media
Outages were first reported on Saturday
A water company boss has been urged to resign after thousands of residents in Kent and East Sussex prepare for a fourth day without water due to an issue at a treatment works.
South East Water (SEW) has apologised to up to 24,000 customers in Tunbridge Wells, Pembury, Frant and Eridge who have experienced a loss of water or low pressure since Saturday.
On Monday evening, SEW said that 5,000 customers had seen water restored and work was ongoing to make sure that 18,000 remaining properties with no supplies were back by Tuesday morning.
Tunbridge Wells MP Mike Martin has called on the SEW chief executive to step down, saying “this is a total failure of leadership”.
Local residents described the situation as “difficult”, with people not being able to flush toilets and having to find other arrangements to shower
Some schools across the area were not able to open on Monday due to outages.
MP calls for resignation of South East Water chief executive
Tunbridge Wells resident Haike Tzianetas could not work as a special needs teacher on Monday as her child’s school was closed.
“I queued for 45 minutes to get bottled water on Sunday to find they’d run out,” she told BBC Radio Kent.
Lesley Bingham-Brazier, from Pembury, has been using the gym at Knights Park for showering after being left without water.
“It’s like we are living in a developing country with the lack of water but we are paying so much for it,” she said.
‘Total failure’
Teresa Barrett, from the Black Horse pub in Tunbridge Wells, said it had been “difficult”.
“I would like some guidance on how we can claim compensation,” she added.
Lee in Tunbridge Wells said: “I’ve been without water since 14:00 on Saturday and cannot flush my toilet.
“I’m disabled and stressing out about the situation.”
Tunbridge Wells MP Mike Martin, who was also without water, called South East Water “utterly useless”.
“Their communication has been appalling,” he said. “It has been an absolute disaster.”
GP surgeries and civic buildings have been closed, while restaurants and hotels have lost thousands of pounds, he continued.
The Liberal Democrat MP called on SEW chief executive David Hinton to stand down.
“He earns half a million pounds a year,” he said.
“This has happened before. He promised to the public and me in private that lessons had been learned.
“Those claims are totally false,” Martin told the BBC.
Watch: What’s it like to be without water for three days?
SEW previously said the situation would be resolved by 14:00 GMT on Monday, but has since pushed that back to 08:00 on Tuesday.
The water company added it was taking a “measured approach” to restoring supplies to ensure there were “no further issues”.
Incident manager Matthew Dean said on Monday evening: “Our Pembury treatment site is now back up and running after it stopped working on Saturday night due to a water quality issue.”
He warned that tap water could be discoloured or cloudy when it came back, though added this was harmless.
SEW said its focus was entirely on returning supplies to its customers as soon as possible.
A “thorough investigation” would take place into what happened once this had been completed, it continued.
Bottled water stations opened
The water company said it reopened three bottled water stations until supplies are restored.
These are at Tunbridge Wells Sports Centre, Odeon Cinema Knights Way and RCP Parking.
About 24,000 customers were affected by the water outage on Saturday, with 1,150 properties in the Pembury area getting supplies back on Sunday.
The company said 500 homes had water restored since 05:00 on Monday.
Phil Harrison/BBC
Lesley Bingham-Brazier has been using the shower at a gym
Mr Dean said Pembury Water Treatment Works had stopped working “due to a bad chemical batch”.
A new batch of the chemical was received on Sunday, he added.
SEW said it had delivered bottled water to more than 4,000 of its most vulnerable customers.
The water company told BBC Radio Kent just after 17:00 on Monday that staff were working around the clock, with “rigorous” tests required before water could leave the Pembury Works.
A spokesperson added it was “really difficult to give accurate timescales in these scenarios”.
The water company said it thought it had found the problem but “clearly we’ve had a number of setbacks, which has delayed that recovery”.
Water supplies were interrupted in Tunbridge Wells over Christmas 2022.
