Hundreds of households near the Kent coast continue to face water supply outages leaving some people “desperately in need”.
South East Water says customers in Whitstable, Seasalter and Dunkirk are still facing no water or low pressure this morning (July 5).
It is now the fifth day of continuous supply issues across Kent, with problems having started in Herne Bay on Tuesday on the hottest day of the year.
Issues there have now largely resolved but the water company says it is still unable to confirm when the supply will return to the other towns impacted following reports of outages in those places since atleast Wednesday (July 2).
It says issues today are being caused by both a power outage and troubles removing trapped air from the system.
When asked about the issues facing residents in Whitstable and Seawater, South East Water incident manager, Nick Bell, said: “Once again our teams have worked through the night to find new solutions.
“This has led to us now focusing on bypassing the affected area to get supplies back for customers, but this requires large machinery which has arrived on site this morning.
“As a result, unfortunately around 500 properties in the area are still having supply issues.
“We’re continuing to try and remove trapped air from our system of pipes, which is currently preventing water from reaching all customers.
“Removing the airlocks and getting water flowing through the pipes is taking much longer than we expected.
“It has to be done methodically to reduce causing bursts which will slow progress.“
He added that he recognised “how frustrating it is that we’re unable to give a time as to when supplies will be restored“ but said teams are continuing to work around the clock to carefully remove the air and get supplies back “as soon as possible”.
The company says a bottled water station will remain open at Sainsbury’s in Reeves Way until 9pm, with some customers seeing it delivered, including those on our Priority Services Register.
Meanwhile, some 200 homes are now being affected by the outages in Dunkirk.
The village, between Faversham and Canterbury, is being affected by South East Water facing issues with its storage tank.
Mr Bell added: “Due to sustained high demand for drinking water in the recent warm weather, yesterday (Friday) the water in our Dunkirk storage tank reached critically low levels, affecting our ability to pump water.
“As a result around 200 customers experienced supply issues.
“We have been moving water from other areas of the network to supply the Dunkirk storage tank, as well as using our tankers to inject water directly into the network.
“Overnight, our storage levels have recovered enough to enable the pumps to start pushing water through our pipes and, as a result, supplies will begin to return for customers.”
It says customers affected by the outages should travel to Dunkirk Village Hill as its nearest bottled water station.
On Wednesday, the company said up to 3,000 customers in Whitstable, Seasalter and surrounding areas had no water or low pressure due to the recent heatwave.
It comes after thousands more homes in Herne Bay were left with dry taps on Tuesday – the hottest day of the year so far – although supplies there have been restored.
Seasalter councillor Naomi Smith (Lab) has criticised the response to the outage.
“They have put the water station four miles away from where the problem is,” she said.
“They have given water to people who don’t need it and missed people who desperately need it.
“South East Water can’t cope with the basic needs of supplying water.”
