{"id":369129,"date":"2026-01-14T10:19:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T10:19:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/369129\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T10:19:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T10:19:10","slug":"its-pretty-grim-tunbridge-wells-residents-struggle-through-several-days-without-water-again-kent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/369129\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018It\u2019s pretty grim\u2019: Tunbridge Wells residents struggle through several days without water \u2013 again | Kent"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the residents of Tunbridge Wells trudged down their sodden high street in the pouring rain, the idea that they had run out of water \u2013 for the second time in just a few weeks \u2013 seemed farcical.<\/p>\n

At the end of November the local water treatment centre, which had been flagged as at risk by the regulator in 2024, was forced to shut down, leaving 24,000 households without water for two weeks. The Drinking Water Inspectorate later said this outage was foreseen and was due to a lack of maintenance at the site.<\/p>\n

Now, for many here, it\u2019s Groundhog day, with more than 30,000 homes across Sussex and Kent<\/a> spending up to six days without water after South East Water blamed freezing weather for leaks in its ageing pipe network.<\/p>\n

No one knows exactly when the water will be back. Schools have shut, businesses have closed. Struggling pubs and restaurants have had to shut their doors. \u201cWe can\u2019t wash up, every day we have to decide what to cook based on how much water we have. We\u2019ve been showering at the local gym,\u201d said Gary, who has faced intermittent water for a week.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes the water comes on for an hour or two in the mornings. Sometimes too late for my wife to shower before she goes to work. And without being too disgusting, our toilet is currently full,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

A distribution centre in Tunbridge Wells, where South East water workers are giving out bottled water. Photograph: Sean Smith\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

Local MP Mike Martin, who is a Liberal Democrat, rushed back to the constituency from parliament after hearing there were problems with the water bottle supply centre. His in-laws are in the \u201cred zone\u201d with no water and have been showering at his house.<\/p>\n

Standing in the rain at the local rugby club, where water was being handed out, he said: \u201cVulnerable people are emailing in just terrible stories, people with young children, elderly people, people who are ill, people who just come out of hospital. You know, it\u2019s a real disaster not having water.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kama Bass, 53, has had almost no water for a week. \u201cI\u2019ve had to organise with a friend when to shower at her house,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m fortunate that I have no children at home and my husband is away, so it\u2019s just me, but it\u2019s still been pretty grim. I actually am getting stressed about the amount of plastic water bottles I am having to use. I don\u2019t know how families are coping \u2013 the amount of bottled water you need to cook and to wash up and to keep the children hygienic. It\u2019s horrific.\u201d<\/p>\n

People arrive to collect bottled water from a water station in East Grinstead. Photograph: Gareth Fuller\/PA<\/p>\n

Her neighbour, Hugh Wilson, 65, has been struggling with the lack of water. \u201cI have a disabled daughter, so it\u2019s been very difficult,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a guessing game when we will be able to wash. Because we\u2019ve only got a limited amount of water in the hot water tank, so you don\u2019t want to run that down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Everyone in the Forest Road area, where Kama, Hugh and Gary live, were concerned about the local pub, the Bull, which has said its future is on \u201cthin ice\u201d after being forced to shut for a second time in a matter of weeks. On Tuesday afternoon the pub was empty, with a sign up saying \u201cdue to no water, we have no option but to close.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, one local cafe, fortunately unaffected, was acting as a makeshift creche for children whose schools were forced to close due to a lack of running water. \u201cWe rushed here from Beckenham, my daughter and son in law have work today,\u201d said a grandmother completing worksheets with her grandson, who was off school.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has to be done and we love spending time with him but it is very inconvenient for everyone in Tunbridge Wells. It\u2019s bad management \u2026 it seems to be so many issues and still the CEO gets a big bonus.\u201d<\/p>\n

A man collects bottled water from a water station in East Grinstead. Photograph: Gareth Fuller\/PA<\/p>\n

Dave Hinton, the chief executive of South East Water, has been largely absent from media during both crises. Everyone appears to be aware of his large pay; he has a base salary of \u00a3400,000 and received a bonus of \u00a3115,000 last year. Hinton recently told the environment, food and rural affairs parliamentary committee that he did not do interviews during the last outage because the questions would focus on his pay and bonus, which he believes to be a distraction.<\/p>\n

Dozens of cars were arriving at the water collection centre at the rugby club throughout the morning, although the club sporadically closes after running out of water.<\/p>\n

Scott Richardson, who lives nearby, was picking up bottles, and told the Guardian he\u2019d had no water for three days.<\/p>\n

Of Hinton, he added: \u201cIt\u2019s costing businesses fortunes worth of money, and he\u2019s not really that apologetic about it, and he\u2019s got quite a big bonus. He should be handing that back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Workers hand over bottled water at a water station in East Grinstead. Photograph: Gareth Fuller\/PA<\/p>\n

Richardson said England<\/a> \u201cmust be the mock of the globe. We can\u2019t even get water from our taps\u201d.<\/p>\n

For South East Water\u2019s part, the company seems pleased with its response. At a recent Efra committee hearing, Hinton gave himself an eight out of ten for dealing with water shortages.<\/p>\n

The chair of the company wrote on Tuesday to the committee, disputing the drinking water inspectorate\u2019s evidence for the reasons for the previous outage and announcing the water company would be conducting its own internal investigation, with the results coming in April.<\/p>\n

Martin said: \u201cThat\u2019s their regulator, right? They are accusing their regulator of being wrong. I wish them luck with that. They\u2019ve also been recalled to the select committee to correct their evidence, so the net is tightening around these guys.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mike Keil, chief executive of the Consumer Council for Water, said this shows how unprepared water companies are for climate breakdown and the extreme weather it brings.<\/p>\n

He told the BBC: \u201cTime and time again we see in particular South East Water\u2019s patch that their service fails when the weather throws something a little bit extreme at it. We see in the summer it get\u2019s too hot they don\u2019t have water, and now it\u2019s too cold and you don\u2019t get water. We all know our climate is changing, we are going to see extreme weather events. If a company cannot deal with today\u2019s weather, they are going to really struggle in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

A sign is displayed at at an emergency bottled water distribution point in Maidstone. Photograph: Carl Court\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Keil said this showed the infrastructure needed to be improved through investment.<\/p>\n

South East Water has said is doing \u201ceverything it can\u201d to support affected customers and said its repair teams are working \u201caround the clock\u201d to restore supplies.<\/p>\n

It added that it has not received a consistent bulk supply of water from a neighbouring company, as it normally would.<\/p>\n

\u201cFollowing the recent cold weather and a subsequent breakout of leaks and bursts across Kent and Sussex, our drinking water storage tanks are running very low, and there are currently around 30,000 impacted properties across the two counties,\u201d incident manager Matthew Dean said.<\/p>\n

A South East Water spokesperson added: \u201cDavid Hinton, chief executive, remains committed to resolving the immediate issues facing customers in both Kent and Sussex, whilst continuing to seek to obtain the investment to deliver the much needed improvements in resilience to the South East Water network, detailed in the company\u2019s business plan.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the residents of Tunbridge Wells trudged down their sodden high street in the pouring rain, the idea…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":369130,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-369129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=369129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369129\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/369130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}