‘Livid’ Tunbridge Wells residents forced to boil water after supplies finally return
Residents in Royal Tunbridge Wells say they are “furious” after thousands were told they would have to boil their tap water when it returned, after going without supplies for almost a week.
South East Water (SEW) has apologized after 24,000 customers in Tunbridge Wells, Pembury, Frant and Eridge began experiencing loss of water or low pressure on Saturday.
On Wednesday, the company said the “water quality issues” that caused the initial shutdown had returned. They decided to continue pumping water so people can use toilets and showers, but for the next 10 days the water cannot be drunk without boiling.
Alexandra Barnes, mother of three children, told Independent He said he and his neighbors spent almost a week collecting water from rain butts to flush their toilets with buckets.
“Obviously that’s not very nice and doesn’t defuse the situation properly,” he said. “I have little kids who aren’t very good at aiming, so it’s hard to keep it nice and clean.
“My daughter’s daycare is local, so [it] “It couldn’t be opened because there was no water supply,” he added. “This is difficult because we are dealing with business. I am a family lawyer and my husband manages a plumber’s shop. “So we both have very busy jobs and we couldn’t do them properly.”
South Tunbridge Wells borough councilor Martin Brice said he had met people flushing their toilets with rainwater, and said: “The closest analogy I can think of is actually going back to the Second World War.
“People who have rainwater barrels use a bucket, fill a bucket and then use it to flush the toilet. This is, I would say, the seventh largest economy in the world, it’s one of the wealthiest parts of the economy, and there are people flushing toilets probably the same way they did in Victorian times, and frankly that makes me furious.”
He added that residents were “absolutely furious at South East Water”.
“This incident happened in the same area three years ago. And they made absolutely no plans for it to happen again,” he said.
“Delivery to people on the priority list is extremely inadequate. I know someone who was 82nd on the priority list and they delivered her priority bottles to her within 1.5 hours of giving her water back,” Mr. Brice continued.
Since the water disappeared on Saturday, Ms Barnes has had to buy almost 50 liters of water and has gone to the homes of friends and family to refill at least 30 liters to support her family of five. But he remained most critical of SEW’s “lack of transparency and honesty”.
“There are mixed messages about what the cause is, something chemical,” he added. “They were saying, ‘Your water will break at 6 in the morning, then it will be at 6 at night, and this happens every day.’
“I could have gone somewhere on Monday to wash everyone, but I thought, ‘They tell me my water will break. Of course it will. I’m not going to disturb everyone and go and overpower someone else and disturb them too.’ But if I had known, we would have made plans.”
The incident began on Saturday evening over “bad” chemicals being used at Pembury water treatment plants.
Three bottled water stations opened by the company in Tunbridge Wells will remain open until 10pm; They are at Tunbridge Wells Sports Centre, Odeon Cinema, Knights Way and the RCP Car Park.
Liberal Democrat MP Mike Martin said: Independent: “The suffering of the people of Tunbridge Wells last week was truly appalling. Not only did South East Water cut off their water supply, they also completely failed to manage the crisis and communicated in a contradictory and ineffective way. This has made the crisis worse rather than better.”
He called on SEW’s CEO, Dave Hinton, to resign.
South East Water’s Incident Manager, Matthew Dean, said: “Water has been restored to more than 23,000 properties in Tunbridge Wells following recent water disruptions.
“We are continuing our work to carefully refill the pipeline network to prevent problems such as burst pipes, as well as effectively eliminating airlocks. A proportion of customers will still experience no water or pressure while we complete this important work.”
“Water may appear discolored when it returns to customers’ faucets. This is normal and is caused by naturally occurring iron and manganese deposits in our pipes. These deposits are harmless but can cause the water to appear cloudy or brown. All customers need to do is run the cold faucet until it runs clear.”
“We are extremely sorry to any customers in the city who are still experiencing issues.”
