Tens of thousands in Sussex and Kent start working week without water

Tens of thousands of people in East Sussex and Kent are starting the weekend without water following a weekend outage, with the council in Kent declaring a major incident.

South East Water (SEW) said a number of problems were to blame, including Storm Goretti and a power outage at its pumping plant.

It is stated that 14 postcodes are still affected in the East Grinstead, Frant and Tunbridge Wells areas.

Collection points have been set up for bottled water and some customers have been told their supplies may not be restored until Tuesday.

Kent County Council leader Linden Kemkaran said on

Many schools in Kent and Sussex were closed for a day due to water shortages.

SEW apologized to everyone affected and said it was distributing water to those in its priority registers.

He blamed Storm Goretti and cold weather for outages in East Grinstead and “essential network changes” for those in Eastbourne.

It said the problems in Hollingbourne were due to “neighbouring water companies being unable to supply us with bulk purified water as they normally do”.