By Tony O’Reilly-
Thousands of households across the counties of Kent and Sussex remain without reliable water supply as authorities step up their response and the industry regulator considers further action against the utility provider.
Over the weekend and into the start of the week, households in towns such as Tunbridge Wells, East Grinstead, Maidstone, Whitstable and Canterbury have reported taps running completely dry or only low‑pressure trickles, forcing many families to queue for bottled water and adapt daily routines around a basic necessity.
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South East Water (SEW), the company responsible for supplying much of the region, has acknowledged the severity of the disruption, apologising to customers and saying repair teams are working “around the clock”.
Incident manager Matthew Dean said that freezing conditions and a combination of burst pipes, power cuts and treatment challenges triggered by Storm Goretti have severely strained local storage capacity, leaving an estimated 30,000 properties without adequate water supply. He told the press that storage tanks in affected areas were “running very low,” complicating efforts to restore full supply.
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Council leader Linden Kemkaran said county officials are preparing “additional arrangements” to cope with ongoing disruption. She confirmed that the declaration responded to the increasing number of homes affected over recent days.
With some households, the lack of water has persisted for several days. In Sussex’s East Grinstead alone, around 16,500 homes remain without running water or are experiencing intermittent pressure.
In Kent, additional supplies are still elusive in many rural areas. SEW has set up bottled water distribution points at several locations, while water deliveries have been made to identified vulnerable customers.
Despite these efforts, locals have complained that the number of stations is insufficient and distances to reach them are too great, leaving some residents struggling to access even basic amounts of drinking water.
Schools and public services have also been affected. Several educational institutions closed their doors in areas without water, citing health and safety concerns, and the Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead had to switch to virtual consultations where feasible due to the lack of running water.
The prolonged disruption has compounded frustration among families and businesses already dealing with the inconvenience and added expense of securing alternative water supplies.
Regulator examines response and future measures amid mounting pressure
The water crisis has intensified scrutiny of South East Water’s preparedness and infrastructure resilience. The UK’s water regulator, Ofwat, has said it is “concerned” that residents in Kent and Sussex are without water again and is coordinating with the Drinking Water Inspectorate, the agency that leads regulation of supply interruptions.
Households and MPs have expressed mounting frustration at SEW’s response and the frequency of supply failures. Earlier public hearings revealed deep dissatisfaction with leadership, particularly with the company’s chief executive, David Hinton, whose explanation for a prior prolonged outage in Tunbridge Wells pointed to increased water use during pandemic lockdowns and climate‑driven changes to raw water chemistry remarks that were widely criticised as deflecting responsibility from operational shortcomings.
Critics, including local MPs, have called for changes in leadership, with some describing the current chief executive as “not up to the job”.
These outages follow a series of problems over the past months. In late 2025, a significant supply failure at the Pembury water treatment works left approximately 24,000 households without safe drinking water for nearly two weeks.
Regulators later said the issue was foreseeable and preventable, pointing to gaps in testing and infrastructure upgrades. That episode contributed to growing scepticism about South East Water’s ability to maintain reliable service and prevent major breakdowns, especially amid extreme weather.
Government officials have been drawn into the controversy. The environment minister, Mary Creagh, held meetings with SEW executives to express concern about service performance and called the ongoing supply issues “completely unacceptable,” particularly given the cold winter weather when reliable water access is essential. National leaders have faced pressure from local representatives to intervene if the company fails to deliver improvements.
Residents trapped in the crisis have voiced dismay at the situation and the slow pace of recovery. Many families are rationing water for essential tasks, such as drinking, cooking and personal hygiene, and some have resorted to collecting rainwater where legally permitted.
Community groups are organising volunteers to help distribute water and support those most in need, but the hardship has exposed broader concerns about infrastructure investment, climate change impacts and the preparedness of utility firms.
Water companies such as SEW are legally obliged to maintain a robust supply system and support customers during outages, including delivering bottled water and providing regular updates.
The scale of the current disruption has sparked debate about whether existing regulatory standards are sufficient and whether enforcement action will be strengthened in light of recent events. Ofwat’s ongoing review may lead to fines or mandated performance improvements if it finds regulatory breaches or chronic underperformance.
Economists and infrastructure experts warn that the water network in the South East where population growth, climate volatility and ageing pipes converge may be reaching a point where incremental fixes are no longer adequate.
They argue that systemic investment in treatment works, real‑time monitoring technology, and burst detection systems is essential to reduce the frequency and duration of future outages, while climate adaptation strategies should be embedded in long‑term planning.
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