Thousands of homes across Kent remain without water on Friday, with South East Water warning that the supply will remain intermittent over the weekend.
A heatwave that has seen temperatures peak at 35C in London and other parts of England has caused water shortages due to reservoir supplies running low, with businesses and restaurants in the coastal town of Whitstable forced to close.
Around 3,500 customers are currently without water in the seaside area, but supply is expected to return later on Friday. However, the company has warned that tap water is “likely to remain intermittent across the weekend for all customers in this area”.
Meanwhile in London, Thames Water has been grappling with a burst main since midnight on Wednesday, with residents living in the postcodes SE5, SE15, SE22, SE24, SW2 and SW9 all struggling with low pressure or no water.
Madeline Sherratt, who lives in southeast London, has hit out at Thames Water for not providing backup or emergency supplies during the record-breaking heatwave.
She told The Independent: “I haven’t been able to have a drink for over 24 hours from my tap.
“Last night I got a taxi to my friends for a shower and we can’t even do any washing up after we cook! Honestly, this is pure misery but is considerably worse for those who need to take medications and are less able than us.
“I’m unsure how a private utility that charges enormous rates can leave residents without any backup supplies in this heat.”
Thames Water has been approached for comment.
In Kent, drinking water storage tanks have also reached a critical level and affected 200 customers in Cranbrook, while around 8,700 homes are experiencing low pressure or intermittent supply in Ulcombe, Coxheath, Loose, Headcorn and Herne Bay.
For those living in the villages of Challock, Charing and Molash, homes were without water overnight as the company waited for the levels in the reservoir to be high enough to allow the boosters to restart.
Around 700 properties are continuing to struggle with low pressure, while a bottled water station has been opened at Challock Village Hall.
Pictures from Whitstable on Thursday show traffic and queues of people lined up at a bottled water collection point at a Sainsbury’s near the Kent town on Thursday, as the water company said 8,000 customers were without supply.
The firm urged customers to use water for essential purposes only – for drinking, washing and cooking, as supply issues continued from over the hot bank holiday weekend.
Meanwhile, Kent County Council announced it will step up public scrutiny of water supply, quality and infrastructure in the county following a series of water outages in recent days, leaving residents “fed up”.
Mark Stubbs, head chef of Wheelers Oyster Bar on Whitstable High Street, said the water outage was a “bit of a shock” and the restaurant had to close, cancel bookings and send staff home on Thursday.
The restaurant receives fresh stock on Thursdays but “I can’t sell it”, he added, as health and safety rules mean food outlets cannot open without running water.
“Staff have had to be sent home; it’s costing a lot of money,” the chef said.
“It’s nice weather and half term when the High Street should be thriving.
“The hospitality industry is going to be hit again really hard.”
On social media, other restaurants and bars in the area listed that they were closed, including the Playhouse Theatre, the Wetherspoons, Nomad Pizza and
One local said: “This cannot happen every time it gets hot, this never happened 2 years ago so what has happened? Selling the storage tank in Borstall Hill hasn’t helped. But why now, we’ve had hotter weather for longer? Time SE Water was disbanded.”
Earlier this month South East Water’s chief executive David Hinton announced his plans to step down just a week after the group’s chairman Chris Train quit following a scathing report by MPs, who said they had “no confidence” in the company’s leadership.
The scrutiny came after thousands of customers were left unable to access tap water, shower or flush their toilets during the outages between November and January.
Dry Wells Action, a consumer action group based in Tunbridge Wells, said the latest outages show South East Water has “learned nothing from the catastrophic Tunbridge Wells water crisis”.
Group chairman Jonathan Hawker said: “How can South East Water still be getting the basics of crisis response so badly wrong?
“Customers were promised lessons would be learned. These latest failures demonstrate, once again, it’s all talk and no action. The licence of this water monopoly that cannot deliver should surely now be revoked.”
South East Water’s incident manager, Steve Benton, said: “We are starting to see tap water supplies returning to some customers across Kent, however some are still experiencing water supply issues as a result of incredibly high demand during this heatwave.
“Yesterday (Thursday 28 May) we pumped 619 million litres of water to customers across our region. This continues to be higher than the average for this time of year. On some days during this period of high demand, we have treated and pumped around 100 million litres more than the daily average for May.
“We are doing everything we can to get treated water into our storage reservoirs, including using our tankers to support the network and ensuring all available treatment works are running at full capacity. However, some customers will continue to have intermittent water supply until these levels have been restored. This means water may be on and off throughout the day.
Nick Price, head of water resources, South East Water, said: “All of our raw water resources are in a healthy position at the current time as we move through spring and into summer.
“Winter rainfall was higher than the long term average across our supply area, and it was particularly wet in Sussex and our Western regions. We’re monitoring the situation closely as, in contrast, March was drier than average and April was particularly dry, with catchments in Kent receiving only 8 per cent of the month’s expected rainfall.
“This weekend saw the first heatwave of the year and the hottest May day on record. As expected, demand for water has surged.”
He added that the water network is “like a motorway”, and can come to a standstill if everyone uses it “all at once”.
“During this time of year, we usually see demand for water starting to increase and we are asking our customers to please use water for essential uses only, for drinking, cooking and washing,” he said.
A Thames Water spokesperson said: “We’re sorry for the disruption to customers’ water supplies following a burst pipe in the Southwark area yesterday (28 May).
“We’ve re-routed water to minimise disruption while repairs are carried out, although some customers may continue to experience lower-than-normal pressure during peak demand. Yesterday, tankers were also used to pump additional water into the network.
“Our teams have worked through the night to progress repairs to the burst pipe at the junction of Nunhead Lane and Linden Grove. We have now completed the first of two excavations, allowing our engineers to access the damaged section of pipe. Work is under way to complete the second excavation so the pipe can be repaired and replaced as quickly as possible.
“We have delivered bottled water to medically dependent customers on our Priority Services Register and our customer representatives are on site again today supporting those directly impacted by flooding caused by the burst.
“Traffic management and diversions remain in place, and drivers are advised to allow extra time for journeys.”
