Thousands in Whitstable, Kent without water supply during hot weather after reservoirs ‘reached critical level’
Thousands of residents in Kent are facing serious water shortages as South East Water confirmed storage reservoirs have “reached critical levels” amid hot weather.
The crisis led to traffic scenes and queues of people queuing at the bottled water collection point at Sainsbury’s near the Kent town of Whitstable; South East Water confirmed 8,000 customers were experiencing water shortages.
The utility had previously urged customers to limit water use to essential purposes such as drinking, washing and cooking, following persistent supply problems that began over the last hot bank holiday weekend.
Kent County Council has announced plans to increase public scrutiny of the borough’s water supply, quality and infrastructure in response to a series of recent cuts that have left residents “fed up”.
South East Water incident manager Steve Benton said while tap water supply was expected to resume in Whitstable on Thursday, it could remain “intermittent over the weekend”.
It also confirmed that 7,000 customers are currently experiencing low pressure or interrupted supply in Tankerton, Ashford and surrounding areas, Ulcombe, Cranbrook, Coxheath and Headcorn.
Another 7,000 customers “are at risk of experiencing some loss of supply today,” the official added.
Mr Benton said: “Customers across the city are still experiencing water supply issues due to extremely high demand in very hot weather.
“We are doing everything we can to get treated water into our storage reservoirs, but some of our customers will continue to have intermittent water supplies until these levels are restored.”
According to the water company, the company pumped 628 million liters of water to customers on Wednesday and treated and pumped 100 million liters more over the weekend than the daily average for May.
Mr Benton apologized to customers and said “we will continue to do our best to prevent and resolve problems”.
Earlier this month South East Water’s chief executive David Hinton announced plans to resign just a week after group chief executive Chris Train resigned following a scathing report from MPs who said they had “no confidence” in the company’s leadership.
The review comes after thousands of customers were unable to access running water, shower or flush toilets during outages between November and January.
Kent County Council on Thursday said it would form a new “strategic partnership” to monitor the resilience of the county’s water following the latest cuts.
The City Water Resilience Partnership will be chaired by council leader Linden Kemkaran and will involve water companies, local authorities, regulators and others to focus on planning, performance and show the public how water issues are being addressed.
Ms Kemkaran said: “People across the city are tired of going without water or having their water supply disrupted, sometimes for days, and not getting clear answers about what went wrong or when it will be fixed.
“This isn’t good enough.”
The mayor said the authority did not have direct authority over water companies, but “we have a responsibility to defend the City”.
Currently, responsibility is very fragmented and there is no single place to look at the entire system.
“This partnership aims to change that. It will shine a light on the issues affecting the City and provide a clear and open examination of how those responsible are responding.”
The move follows calls from the Green group on Kent County Council for authorities to declare an “Urban Water Supply Emergency” and create a plan to rectify the situation if the county’s water supply is not fit for purpose.
Green councilor Stuart Heaver, who represents the Whitstable ward, said on Wednesday: “It’s incredible that my residents are once again left without water. “This madness is only getting worse.
“We need to find out if our water resources are fit for purpose and figure that out.”
