Thousands around Tunbridge Wells without water for fourth day

Thousands of households in Kent and East Sussex are without water for a fourth day due to an issue at a treatment works.

South East Water (SEW) has apologised to up to 24,000 customers in Tunbridge Wells, Pembury, Frant and Eridge who have experienced a loss of water or low pressure since Saturday.

At 06:15 GMT the company posted it was making “good progress” but did not confirm how many homes were still without water.

Some schools have said they would be closed for a second consecutive day.

On Monday evening, SEW said that 5,000 customers had seen water restored and work was ongoing to make sure that 18,000 remaining properties with no supplies were back by Tuesday morning.

Households lost supply on Saturday night after Pembury Water Treatment Works had stopped working “due to a bad chemical batch”, South East Water (SEW) said.

Tunbridge Wells MP, Mike Martin, called for the resignation of the SEW boss David Hinton, labelling the situation “a total failure of leadership”.

He told BBC Radio Kent: “It has been challenging. Every time they seem to get it wrong.”

In response, Matthew Dean, SEW incident manager, said: “We are very sorry to all our customers in Tunbridge Wells who have been experiencing issues with their water supply.

“Our focus is entirely on returning supplies to our customers as soon as possible.

“Once we have returned supplies to all customers, a thorough investigation will take place into what happened.

Bottled water stations in Tunbridge Wells have been opened for customers for the last three days.