KCC Declares major incident as water woes continue

Residents are still experiencing little or no water into early 2026 due to what South East Water calls ‘intermittent supply interruptions’. Eileen Leahy reports on the latest outage which has seen six and a half thousand homes and businesses affected…

Following the major water outage at the end of last year – which started on November 29 and lasted nearly two weeks, affecting 24,000 homes and businesses – South East Water (SEW) is still grappling with ongoing issues regarding its supply to residents.

At the time of going to press the beleaguered water company admitted that there were, once again, thousands of homes across Tunbridge Wells and elsewhere in the South East with little or no water.

According to an official spokesperson the most recent supply problems have been caused by a number of issues across SEW’s network.

The company said the impact of Storm Goretti, coupled with freezing temperatures, had caused the recent outages in Tunbridge Wells – as well as East Grinstead and Eastbourne causing tens of thousands of homes and businesses to be without water.

“Storm Goretti has affected our ability to treat water at the normal rate. Coupled with the outbreak of burst water mains on our network due to the freeze/thaw conditions drinking water storage levels are running low,” a SEW spokesperson said.

That statement was met with ‘concern’ from Mary Creagh, a minister for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, who said the problems were ‘unacceptable’.

“I remain very concerned that people in several areas in the South East are experiencing water supply issues following both cold weather and Storm Goretti,” she said on January 10.

“This is entirely unacceptable. This afternoon (January 10) I chaired a further meeting with the water companies and local resilience forums to restore supplies as quickly as possible, prioritising vulnerable customers and essential public services.”

Tunbridge Wells MP Mike Martin said that in the local area alone 42,000 customers had been affected by the latest outage, however SEW put the figure at around 28,000.

This follows SEW’s CEO David Hinton appearing at Parliament’s Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (EFRA) Committee on January 6 where he gave himself and the company an 8 out of 10 rating for how they handled the major outage back in early December.

At the select committee meeting he also said that the original outage, which happened just before the busy Christmas trading period, had been down to SEW’s supply being ‘too reliant’ on one asset.

Appearing alongside Tanya Sephton, South East Water’s Customer Services Director, in his opening remarks, Hinton also cited extreme weather, housing growth and rising demand, arguing that infrastructure constraints were at the root of the incident.

Hinton added that having 22,000 plus customers reliant on a single source of supply was ‘too many’ and that improving resilience would form part of the company’s future plans.