'Water disruption is really hurting businesses'

Business owners across Kent have spoken out about how major water supply disruptions have impacted their earnings.

On Friday, South East Water (SEW) said 17,665 properties across the county were either without water, have low pressure or intermittent supplies while blaming the demand for water during the hot weather as the cause of the outages.

Sarah, who owns Elise Hair in Whitstable, told BBC Radio Kent the last few days had been a "nightmare".

SEW incident manager Matthew Dean said tap water supplies are starting to return to some customers; however some are still experiencing water supply issues as a result of "incredibly high demand during this heatwave".

"Around 3,500 customers in the Whitstable area started seeing their supplies return yesterday evening," Dean added.

He confirmed on Friday that about 3,500 customers in the Whitstable area were without supply, but water was expected to return later that day.

"Tap water is likely to remain intermittent across the weekend for all customers in this area," he said.

Dean added that SEW had given out 339,972 water bottles at bottled water stations across Kent and will "continue to identify new locations".

He said that about 165 customers in Cranbrook were currently without supply because the drinking water storage tanks serving these areas had "reached a critical level".

"In addition, there are currently around 10,500 customers experiencing low pressure or an intermittent supply in Benenden, Coxheath, Loose, Headcorn and Herne Bay."

SEW has continued to urge customers to use water for essential purposes only.

Sarah, owner of Elise Hairdressers, said: "We've had to cancel all our clients yesterday because we couldn't do any services because of colouring, and we can't use bottled water to remove colour."

She added that water outages had been "devastating" as disruptions impacted businesses across the seaside town.

"I was driving around town, and lots of businesses were closed," she said. "Whitstable is an amazing place to visit. Visitors wanted to go to the restaurants and cafes, but none of them were open.

"I can't even explain the level of frustration."

Lee Murray, owner of the Harbour Street Tapas in Whitstable, said he had to close on Wednesday.

"We were all set for a busy week and weekend and hundreds of people booked throughout the week but that came to a halt on Wednesday night."

Murray said he had to close because the taps ran dry.

"If you don't have running water you can't run your business. Chefs can't wash pans or cook and customers can't wash their hands and use the toilets," he explained.

Murray said while water had returned on Friday, he was still concerned disruptions might happen again.

"The big worry for me was when South East Water said 'intermittent supply'. If we run out of water we close again."

The Whitstable School has issued a notice to parents that it might be "necessary" to close the school to all pupils except those due to sit their examinations.

It said this was due to SEW not being able to guarantee whether the school would have access to a full mains water supply on Monday.

The school said if this were the case, it would arrange portable toilet facilities specifically for students attending examinations and provide access to bottled drinking water.

It added other students would be expected to access online learning.

Dean said the company was doing everything it can "to prevent and resolve the issues".

He added that on Thursday, 619 million litres of water were pumped to customers across the region - higher than the average for this time of year.

And he confirmed that tankers had been working 24/7, putting 1,753,561 litres of water into the network in areas where demand was extremely high and to support SEW's stored water reservoirs.

229,464 litres of water has also been delivered to customers most in need, he said.

"Additionally, we are supporting the Queen Victoria Memorial Hospital in Herne Bay and urgent care unit with a tanker and supporting those with livestock," said Dean.

"We are sorry to customers who have had interruptions or low pressure in their water supply and know how frustrating it is, especially in very hot weather," he added.

Mike Pickard, incident manager at SEW, acknowledged customers' frustration.

Speaking to Radio Kent on Friday, he said: "Demand has reduced in the last few days which has resulted in a majority of our storage tanks recovering."

He added water is gradually returning to customers' taps.

However, Pickard urged residents to "use water wisely", warning that another surge could set back recovery.

He said demand varied across regions in Kent and Sussex, and the network design affected how quickly supplies could recover.

The recent heatwave, which coincided with a bank holiday and school half-term, led to a sharp increase in usage, he added.

"The company has a £2bn investment plan to improve infrastructure, but this will take time as there is a lot of planning involved."

A further two areas in West Sussex, Keymer and Ditchling, were also without water or have low pressure.

A SEW spokesperson said they were "looking into the cause as a priority".

"Please be assured we are working as quickly as possible to get your supply back up and running as soon as we can," they added.

Earlier this month, SEW chief executive David Hinton announced his plans to step down just a week after the group's chairman Chris Train quit following a scathing report by MPs, who said they had "no confidence" in the company's leadership.

The scrutiny came after thousands of customers were left unable to access tap water, shower or flush their toilets during the outages between November and January.

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