Residents of several communities being provided supplies by South East Water have spoken of their fury after they were hit with outages during the heatwave this week
Kent residents have been left “spitting” with anger after their water supply from South East Water was interrupted during a record-smashing heatwave.
Extensive water supply interruption across the southeast left tens of thousands of customers with the major supplier struggling doubly in the heatwave. By Wednesday, about 8,000 people in Whitstable had no water at all, and another 14,000 experienced intermittent supply or low pressure in Tankerton, Ashford, and its surrounding areas, forcing some businesses to close.
By Thursday, 22,000 people reported water supply problems, and, as its representatives warn the issues could last into the weekend, locals have let rip at the firm.
Speaking to The Guardian, Pat Prestage, who lives in Whitstable with her husband Martin, said she was left “spitting, fuming, angry, and powerless” when the supply issues began. The 67-year-old said the couple’s household supply went off completely at 6.30pm on Wednesday, and Martin tried calling for an emergency delivery.
But he was unable to get through to South East’s emergency line, and was forced to spend an hour the following morning queueing for water at a bottle station. The situation was difficult for Pat, who lives with a disability that makes her vulnerable to outage events.
Both she and her husband were left furious at what they called South East’s “Blitz spirit” response to the crisis, which saw representatives ask customers who had water to dial back their usage to aid those going without.
Pat said: “They talk to the public as if they’re a public service. They’re a private company, run for profit. Some of the money we’re paying, they’re pocketing, and it’s not going into the reservoir we’ve needed for 40 years.”
Martin said he felt the “inference is almost that it’s our fault”, adding: “They say the extreme hot weather means the system can’t cope, but what sort of system is it that goes offline like it has for us for 20 hours? Surely you build things into the system so you don’t get that happening.”
Another 90-year-old customer collecting bottled water at a point between Herne Bay and Whitstable said the situation was “absolutely disgusting”, adding: “I live alone, I’m 90 years old, and I’m cut off again. It is absolutely ridiculous.”
South East Water said it was doing everything it could to resolve the issues, and its incident response manager, Matthew Dean, said that some customers will already have had their water access returned by Thursday, but that it could remain intermittent for many over the weekend. He said today that 3,500 people living in Whitstable would have their supply return “later today” while 165 customers in the Cranbrook area have no access to water due to storage tanks reaching a “critical level”.
A further 10,500 of the company’s other customers are living with low pressure or intermittent supply in the Coxheath, Loose, Headcorn, Herne Bay, and Benenden areas. Mr Dean 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.
“This means for the majority of customers, tap water is intermittent, with supply coming and going throughout the day, with no water or low pressure most frequently occurring at times of the day when demand for water is at its highest – in the morning and evening.”
People in affected areas have been asked to limit their water usage to drinking, cooking and cleaning while the issues persist over the weekend.
