Good morning,
I am writing to you today (Thursday, 6 August) with an update on water supplies in Herne Bay, Whitstable and surrounding areas.
Due to unprecedented, prolonged hot weather and record-low rainfall across Kent, drinking water storage tanks in your area continue to be critically low. Although the majority of customers are currently in supply, demand continues to outstrip supply, creating a high risk of sudden supply interruptions.
We are sorry to the 66 properties in the Radfall area who continue to experience low pressure or no water. We have been using a tanker to directly inject into the network to maintain supplies, however we uncovered problems yesterday with the tanker injection point. These were resolved but further complicated by a burst water main on Radfall Road last night.
Due to the complexity of the burst water main repair, we were unable to complete repairs last night due to needing more specialist equipment. Our technicians will be back on site this morning to complete repairs and look to restore supplies to the affected properties in the Radfall area as soon as possible.
We are deeply sorry to all customers currently experiencing low pressure, intermittent supply, or no water. This is far from the standard of service we strive to provide, and it is certainly not the level of service our customers deserve.
What are we doing?
We are working around the clock to balance the network and keep water flowing to your homes:
Moving water to where it is needed most and making sure all available water treatment works operate at maximum capacity.
Tankering water directly into storage tanks and injecting water straight into the local network.
Deploying as many teams as possible to find and fix leaks in your area.
Communicating with local businesses and farms to help reduce their demand.
Delivering bottled water to the 66 properties in the Radfall area and establishing a customer liaison officer who will check in with these customers today.
What you can do
We’re continuing to ask customers to use water for essential purposes only: drinking, cooking and hygiene. This is in line with our temporary usage ban that is now in place for all of our 2.4 million customers across our supply area.
We know we have work to do to build long-term resilience in your area. While those building plans take time, these small actions over the coming days will allow our storage tanks to steadily refill rather than continue to drain down.
When will you update me again?
We are monitoring the situation and will update you again tomorrow (Friday, 7 August) or earlier if the situation escalates.
Thank you for your help, patience, and support. Please share this information within your communities.
Kind regards,
Matthew Dean
Incident Manager