‘Livid’ Tunbridge Wells residents forced to boil water after supplies finally return
People in the royal town had been left without water for six days because of a ‘bad’ batch of chemicals
Royal Tunbridge Wells residents say they are “livid” after thousands were told they must boil their tap water once it returns after going almost a week without supplies.
South East Water (SEW) has apologised after 24,000 customers across Tunbridge Wells, Pembury, Frant and Eridge began experiencing a loss of water or low pressure on Saturday.
On Wednesday, the company said the “water quality issues” that caused the initial shutdown had returned. They have decided to continue pumping water so that people can flush their toilets and shower, but the water cannot be drunk without being boiled first for the next 10 days.
Mum-of-three Alexandra Barnes told The Independent that she and her neighbours have spent almost a week collecting water in rain butts to flush their toilets with buckets.
“Obviously that’s not very pleasant and it doesn’t really flush it through properly,” she said. “I’ve got little boys, who aren’t particularly good at aiming, so it’s all very difficult to keep clean and nice.
“My daughter’s nursery is local, so [it] hasn’t had a water supply, so has been unable to open,” she added. “That’s tough because we’re juggling work. I’m a family lawyer, and my husband manages a plumber’s merchant. So, we’ve both got pretty full-on jobs, and we haven’t been able to do them properly.”
Martin Brice, county councillor for South Tunbridge Wells, said he’d met people who were also flushing their toilets with rainwater, of which he said: “The nearest analogy I can think of is going back to the Second World War, really.
“People who have a rainwater butt are using a bucket, filling a bucket and then using that to flush the toilet. This, I would say, is the seventh biggest economy in the world, in one of the richest parts of that economy, and you’ve got people flushing the toilets in a way that they probably did in Victorian times, and it just makes me livid, frankly."
He added that residents were “absolutely livid at South East Water”.
“This happened in the same area three years ago. And they’ve made absolutely no planning for a recurrence,” he said.
“Their delivery to the people on the priority list has been woefully inadequate. I know someone who’s 82 on the priority list, and they delivered his priority bottles to him 1.5 hours after they turned the water back onto him,” Mr Brice continued.
Since water disappeared on Saturday, Ms Barnes has had to buy almost 50 litres of water and has gone to friends’ and family’s houses to refill at least 30 in order to take care of her family of five. But she remained most critical of the “lack of transparency and honesty” from SEW.
“There’s mixed messages about what the cause was, something chemical,” she added. “They’ve been saying ‘your water will be restored by 6am’ and then it’s 6pm and that’s been daily.
“So on Monday I could have travelled somewhere to wash everybody, but I thought ‘they’re telling me my water’s going to be back. Surely it will be. I’m not going to disrupt everybody and go and prevail upon someone else and disrupt them as well.’ But had I known, we would have made plans.”
The incident began on Saturday evening because of a “bad” batch of chemicals at the Pembury water treatment works.
Three bottled water stations opened across Tunbridge Wells by the company will remain open until 10pm: Tunbridge Wells Sports Centre, Odeon Cinema, Knights Way and RCP Parking.
Liberal Democrat MP Mike Martin told The Independent: “It’s been appalling what the people of Tunbridge Wells have had to suffer over the last week. Not only have South East Water cut off their water supply, but they’ve utterly failed to manage the crisis and they’ve communicated in a contradictory and ineffective way. This has made the crisis worse rather than better.”
He has called for the chief executive of SEW, Dave Hinton, to resign.
South East Water’s incident manager, Matthew Dean, said: “Water has returned to more than 23,000 properties in Tunbridge Wells following the water supply interruption in recent days.
“We are continuing work to refill the pipeline network carefully to avoid issues such as burst pipes, while actively removing airlocks. Pockets of customers will still be experiencing no water or pressure while we complete this important work.
“As water returns to customers’ taps, it may appear discoloured. This is normal and caused by naturally occurring iron and manganese deposits in our pipes. These deposits are harmless but can make the water look cloudy or brown. All customers need to do is run the cold tap until it runs clear.
“We are extremely sorry to all our customers in the town who are still experiencing issues.”
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