A town which was plagued with water issues in the run-up to Christmas faced another supply issue – on the day people were quizzed at Westminster over last month’s crisis.
Around 500 households living in the south of Tunbridge Wells, and Bidborough, have been without water or low-pressure since just after 3pm yesterday (Tuesday).
Now, South East Water has today (Wednesday) opened two bottled water station for its customers without a supply while it works to resolve the issue.
A station has been opened at Tunbridge Wells Rugby Football Club, in St Mark’s Recreation Ground, Tunbridge Wells and another at Bidborough Village Hill, Bidborough Ridge.
Today, SEW incident manager, Mike Court, explained a “series of bursts” as a result of the cold weather had led to drinking water storage tanks to run low.He said: “Despite using our tankers to provide additional support, the drinking water level in the storage tanks drained lower than required for the boosters to run.
“We have completed some repairs and have teams in the area working to restore supply.
“Although water is returning, around 500 properties remain affected, and supplies are likely to be intermittent throughout the day.”
SEW’s customer care team is also delivering bottled water to the customers on its Priority Services Register who are most in need.
Yesterday (Tuesday) the firm said the issue arose because of “pressure issues” at its site, which meant it was unable to pump the water.
At 11pm last night, SEW updated the Aqualert website, saying it expected supplies to return this morning (Wednesday, January 7).
It said: “However, these are likely to be intermittent throughout the day.”
The issues came on the same day SEW boss David Hinton gave evidence to an Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Efra) select committee at the Palace of Westminster regarding a water outage which left 24,000 householders without supplies for 14 days.
During the hearing, Marcus Rink, chief inspector of the Drinking Water Inspectorate, said South East Water had already been warned of the problems which led to issues at Pembury Treatment Works in December, and the plant was operating “sub-optimally” for weeks.
He explained that the opinion of his inspectors was that had SEW carried out the appropriate jar testing – as advised in 2024 – and had the proper data, the original coagulant chemical needed would have worked.
Mr Hinton told the hearing: “The actual issue that caused the event was a change in the raw water chemistry which we’ve not seen in 20 years.”
During the last big supply issues, which started on November 29, SEW told customers in the town and surrounding villages that water from their taps was unsuitable for drinking, bathing, giving to pets or brushing teeth.
Then on December 7, water was restored to properties, but a boil order was put in place — requiring all 24,000 customers to boil water from their taps before drinking or cooking with it.
The safety notice remained in place until nearly a week later, on December 12, when treatment works resumed and the risk of contamination ended.
The Drinking Water Inspectorate warned SEW of a significant risk of failure at the Pembury treatment centre in 2024.
