Anger as water supply misery continues for second day

Thousands of households and businesses in Kent are experiencing water supply issues for a second day.

South East Water (SEW) said on Sunday that up to 7,000 properties face low pressure, no water, or intermittent supply due to a temporary instrument failure at its Tunbridge Wells water treatment works.

The company, which has been heavily criticised for multiple supply failures in recent months, apologised to customers and said two bottled water stations were open in the town for a second day.

Lance Miles, who lives in Tunbridge Wells and is registered disabled, described SEW as "incompetently useless".

"Yet again we are without water," he told the BBC.

"We're not customers, because customers have a choice. We don't have a choice.

"If there was another company, at the drop of a hat I would go with that company."

The company said on Saturday that supplies would not return until Sunday evening "at the earliest", however, previous outages have continued for longer than predicted.

Steven Benton, SEW incident manager, said on Sunday that the water treatment works were "now stable".

He added: "Low storage levels from this disruption and high demand mean we cannot pump water to some areas, particularly on higher ground.

"To ensure a stable, continuous flow, we must allow tanks to replenish."

He added that the company was continuing to deliver bottled water to customers from the priority services register, a free support scheme for people who need extra help.

Two bottled water stations reopened earlier on Sunday at Tesco Superstore on Pembury Road and Tunbridge Wells Rugby Club.

A third opened later at the Odeon cinema car park in Knights Way.

They will stay open until 20:00 BST, SEW said.

The rugby club station closed briefly on Sunday morning while bottled water was restocked, but has since reopened.

Earlier this week, the water company was ordered to spend £30.5m on improvements after investigations by industry watchdog Ofwat.

SEW warned in its annual report this week that it needed to secure fresh financing to stay afloat after taking a £55m hit from outages over the winter.

The water supplier to around 2.3 million customers in the south east of England said it was in discussions with lenders to agree a new loan facility.

SEW has been under intense scrutiny since November, when 24,000 customers lost water supply or pressure in the Tunbridge Wells area.

Customers were then advised to boil their water before consumption for a nine-day period after supply returned.

Weeks later, about 30,000 households in Kent and Sussex faced days of supply issues, which bosses blamed on freezing temperatures and Storm Goretti.

The company announced its chair had departed and its chief executive would also leave following the earlier failures.

Paul Sparrow, another Tunbridge Wells resident, told the BBC: "It's hard to know what to say. We've had years of underinvestment."

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