UK water shortage hits 11 areas – huge queues at emergency stations | UK | News
water distribution area (Image: Simon Jones/BBC)
When households in the south were left without water during the hottest days of the year, thousands of residents formed long queues at the emergency water stations opposite.
A total of 18,000 households across Kent, including Herne Bay, Coxheath, Ashford, Maidstone and the villages of Charing, Challock and Molash, faced outages from Saturday 23 May.
The crisis began over the weekend and by Sunday at least 800 homes were affected; Some properties were still out of supply by Wednesday evening.
South East Water confirmed it had pumped 660 million liters of water to customers in the region; this was more than 100 million liters above the daily average.
A Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) spokesman added that officials were “in close contact with the company and expect it to return the supplies as soon as possible”.
Emergency bottled water distribution points were quickly set up by South East Water as local people had to rely on supplies.
Traffic near bottle stations has increased dramatically; Motorists reported “massive queues” forming near Sainsbury’s in Broomfield, Altira Business Park, near Herne Bay, where emergency supplies were being distributed.
The area experienced significant delays and severe traffic congestion as those affected went out to collect bottled water to get them through the outage.
Bottled water being distributed in Kent (Image: Simon Jones/BBC)
Another bottled water collection point has also been set up at Challock Village Hall near Ashford. Water supplies have been restored in most affected areas, but some residents continue to experience low pressure or intermittent outages.
Those living at the far end of supply networks or in high altitudes have been warned that disruption may continue during periods of peak demand.
Areas still affected as of 21:00 on Wednesday evening:
Whitstable
Pilgrims’ Way, Kemsing and Sevenoaks
Campion Crescent, Cranbrook
Ashford and surrounding areas
Ulcombe Hill, Ulcombe, Maidstone
Charing, Challock, Molash and surrounding areas
South East Water blamed the outage on record-breaking scorching temperatures in Kent.
Supplies were reinstated from lunchtime on Bank Holiday Monday 25 May. Affected homeowners were later contacted via email and asked to “help” alleviate the situation.
“For those who need water, we need your help now. Please use water for essential purposes only: drinking, washing and cooking.”
The company said water use “increased” over the bank holiday weekend, explaining that as households drew water at the same time, water was withdrawn from pipes so quickly that pressure dropped, causing “taps to run completely dry” in those at the farthest reaches of the network.
The outage echoed similar scenes in Tunbridge Wells and Pembury just two weeks before Christmas, when around 30,000 customers were left without water and around 6,000 households were cut off for three days in early April.
Canterbury MP Rosie Duffield described the water outage as “completely unacceptable”.
“Again, when people needed the most basic service during an unprecedented heatwave, South East Water failed them,” he said.
