Heat wave bottle jobs: Water firms set up emergency supply points in Kent, with tankers on standby
With temperatures setting records for May over the long bank holiday weekend, emergency supplies of bottled water were sent to two major Kent towns and hundreds of Brits were hit with interruptions to their water supply.
Distribution points were set up in Faversham and Ramsgate as a precaution, amid problems with infrastructure in the area.
Full-scale supply outages struck in the villages of Charing, Challock and Molash, near Ashford, over the weekend, affecting around 800 properties at the height of the problems. The number fell to around 250 by Monday afternoon. Intermittent problems remained. A bottle station was also set up at Challock village hall.
South East Water was responsible for supplies in and around Ashford, and much of Kent’s commuter heartlands into the City.
It said on its website: “With the increased demand for drinking water in the hot weather, we’re currently struggling to pump water to customers on higher ground at peak times during the day.
“We’re still working hard to restore tap water to all our customers as quickly as possible.”
Bottled water handed out
There were also six instances of low pressure or supply outages in the region served by South East Water. They ranged from Bordon in Hampshire to Crowthorne in Berkshire.
Different problems hit almost 170 homes in Eastbourne and around 20 in Ulcombe near Maidstone over the weekend.
There were also issues with pumps at a site near Whitstable, at Radfall.
The problems in East Kent and toward the Thanet coast related to water supply plants at the villages of Selling and Eastling on the outskirts of Faversham.
Vulnerable households in the market town of 23,000 people received direct deliveries of bottled water overnight. Two distribution points were set up in car parks there. While there were local reports of low water pressure, the taps did not run dry.
Bottled water stations were also operating at two sites in Manston near the seaside town, also as a precaution. Southern Water was responsible for these sites. Ramsgate’s population is around 43,000.
Southern said Thanet’s water supply was working as normal. But it pointed to depleted reservoir levels, and added: “With the very warm weather, demand is higher than usual, so we are continuing to provide bottled water as a precaution.
“Tankers also remain in the area, to help top up our water network and support with the recovery of our lower-than-normal reservoir levels.”
On Monday, South East Water’s website said that during the supply problems it was “increasing our water efficiency campaigns to encourage everyone to help by using a little less water during the hot weather.”
Government has ‘no confidence’ in water firm
According to the firm’s “Aqua Alerter” online fault monitoring service, in the TN25 postcode district which cover Challock, there were eleven separate leaks from South East Water’s network on Monday afternoon.
Southeastern announced the departure of its £400,000-per-year chief executive, David Hinton, earlier this month.
Hinton hit the headlines being summoned to Parliament to explain a week-long outage for 16,000 customers in the Tunbridge Wells area in November and December 2025. The problems struck again in January, around the time he was talking to MPs.
When asked to award his firm’s response to the winter crisis marks out of 10, Hinton plumped for eight. MPs issued a different verdict in their report.
In an highly unusual move, the House of Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs committee declared went on to declare that it had “no confidence” in the chief executive or the board and identified “incompetence” from the leadership alongside a “culture of unaccountability”.
It called on major shareholders– Utilities Trust of Australia, Natwest Pension Fund and Desjardins Group – to hold the company to account.
Hinton is still running South East Water as the firm seeks a successor. The firm’s chairman, Chris Train, resigned in the wake of the MPs’ damning report.
Steve Benton, South East Water’s incident manager, said: “As a result of the recent hot weather, we’re seeing increased demand across our network and we’re having to pump far more drinking water than usual.
“We’re working hard to maintain supplies to customers across our network as the hot weather and increased demand for drinking water continues.
“We’re sorry to all impacted customers for the disruption caused. We know water supply issues during hot weather are deeply frustrating and incredibly inconvenient, and we are working as quickly and safely as possible to resolve them.”