South East Water Supply update
Good morning,
Customers across Kent are still experiencing water supply issues as a result of incredibly high demand during this heatwave. We are sincerely sorry to customers who have had interruptions or low pressure in their water supply and know how frustrating it is, especially in very hot weather.
The situation
Yesterday (Wednesday 27 May) we pumped 628 million litres of water to customers across our region. This is higher than the average for this time of year, and over the weekend we were treating and pumping 100 million litres more than the daily average for May.
As mentioned in our earlier update there are intermittent supplies across many areas, which means customers will see water going off and coming back on throughout the day. Some areas are experiencing a full loss of supply.
Areas currently affected include:
Whitstable – around 8,000 customers lost supplies yesterday afternoon because the storage reservoirs which serve the area have reached a critical level. We expect customers will start to see their tap water supplies return later today, but this may be intermittent over the weekend.
Herne Bay – Customers will have seen supply return overnight, but around 6,500 customers will experience an intermittent supply again today.
Tankerton – fewer than 500 customers are experiencing intermittent supply.
Ashford & surrounding areas – around 4,000 customers are experiencing intermittent supply.
Wye – Around 300 customers were out of supply due to a burst water main overnight, and this has now been fixed. These customers should see their supplies returning today.
Ulcombe – fewer than 20 customers are currently out of supply and we are delivering supplies of bottled water on a daily basis.
Cranbrook – fewer than 200 customers are experiencing intermittent supply.
Charing, Challock and Molash – customers are currently in supply, although around 700 properties may be experiencing low pressure. These customers are likely to see an intermittent supply throughout today and the Bottled Water Station remains open (details below).
Kemsing – a small number of customers are currently experiencing intermittent supply.
Coxheath – around 1,000 customers will experience an intermittent supply throughout today.
Headcorn – around 1,600 customers have intermittent supply, with those on higher ground most likely to be impacted.
What have we been doing?
We planned for the hot weather by increasing output at our water treatment works across our supply area and putting extra water into the network.
Our fleet of tankers has been working 24/7 putting an extra one million litres of water into the network in areas where demand has been extremely high and to support our stored water reservoirs.
In addition we have had some leaks and bursts, while this is normal for a network of 9000 miles of pipework and 6 million joints, we have increased our teams who are out finding and fixing leaks.
In areas where there has been supply interruption – or where we believe issues may occur – we’re delivering bottled water to our vulnerable customers on our Priority Services Register. Since 23 May we have carried out over 10,000 deliveries to customers on our Priority Services Register.
Our bottled water stations have also provided almost 300,000 litres of bottled water to customers across Kent. We have bottled water collection stations set up and we are constantly reviewing this. Details of locations and opening times today (Thursday, 28 May) can be found here:
Challock Village Hall, Blind Lane, Challock, Ashford, TN25 4AU: 9am – 9pm
Kingsnorth Church of England Primary School , Church Hill, Kingsnorth, TN23 3EF: 9am – 10pm
Sainsbury’s Altira Business Park, 6 The Boulevard, Herne Bay, CT6 6GZ: 9am – 10pm
Sainsbury’s Reeves Way, Chestfield, Whitstable, CT5 3QS: 10am – 10pm
Kavanagh Cinema, William Street, Herne Bay CT6 5NX : 9am – 10pm
These may change to reflect the current situation, please check the website for up-to-date information.
Looking ahead
In other parts of our supply region, customers on higher ground may also have low pressure or no water or have an intermittent supply.
We’re sorry for the inconvenience caused and can reassure customers our teams are out working hard to resolve these issues as quickly as we can.
We’re encouraging customers to:
Stop using jet washes, hosepipes and sprinklers. Swap paddling pools for water blasters to keep kids cool and the car and patio can wait for a wash.
Think about where you can swap tap water for recycled water. Reuse water from baths, showers and sinks in the garden.
Act now, please do all you can to cut down on everything but essential water use, which is drinking, washing and cooking.
Once again, we are sorry to customers who have had interruptions or low pressure in their water supply. We will continue to do all we can to prevent and resolve the issues.