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A significant number of households in the south-east of England continue to face water shortages, with many residents informed that services may not be fully restored before Tuesday. In Sussex, approximately 16,500 homes in East Grinstead are experiencing little to no water pressure. Other areas such as Eastbourne and the village of Upper Dicker have also been affected by similar supply disruptions. Meanwhile, in Kent, around 4,500 households located in Hollingbourne, Headcorn, Ulcombe, Kingswood, and Sutton Vallance are without water. Additional communities in Wrotham, Sevenoaks, and the Loose area of Maidstone are suffering from either low water pressure or total outages.
South East Water (SEW) has expressed regret to those impacted and confirmed that it is providing water deliveries to individuals on its priority list, which includes vulnerable groups. The company attributes the distribution problems to a mix of factors across its network. Storm Goretti and cold weather conditions have been cited as the cause of interruptions in East Grinstead, while “essential network changes” have led to outages in Eastbourne. In Hollingbourne, the shortages stem from a lack of treated water supplied by neighbouring water companies, which typically provide bulk supplies to SEW. In response, several bottled water distribution points have been established throughout the region; however, local residents have reported significant traffic congestion caused by queues at these stations.
Residents have raised concerns about the limited availability of water collection points. A woman from Forest Row, situated just two miles south of East Grinstead, told the BBC that most of her village currently lacks water, yet people must travel into East Grinstead to obtain bottled water. She questioned the absence of distribution sites within surrounding villages suffering from the outage and highlighted the difficulties faced by elderly and car-less residents. She said, “South East Water says it has delivered water to the elderly and vulnerable and indeed my sister, aged 72, had water delivered to her. However, her 92-year-old neighbour received nothing.” She described the current two water collection points in East Grinstead as “obviously woefully insufficient.” SEW acknowledged the criticism and stated it had taken measures to address the problems.
Steve Andrews, incident manager at South East Water, explained some of the recent changes made in response to customer feedback. He noted they decided not to open the previous bottled water station at Sainsbury’s, Brooklands Way, and instead established an alternative point at East Grinstead Sports Club, while maintaining another collection site at East Grinstead’s Queensway car park. In Kent, water stations have been set up at the Tunbridge Wells Rugby Club and Headcorn Aerodrome in Ashford. Other affected locations include the village of Stelling Minnis near Canterbury. SEW also mentioned that residents in Tunbridge Wells, who have been without water since Tuesday, can expect restoration of supply by Sunday. Meanwhile, Mary Creagh, a minister from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, condemned the situation as “entirely unacceptable.” She expressed her concern over the water problems following the adverse weather and said she chaired a meeting with water companies and local resilience forums to expedite the restoration of supplies, focusing especially on helping vulnerable customers and critical services
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