Water Outages Affect 25,000 in Kent and East Sussex

Tens of thousands of residents and businesses in Kent and East Sussex began the week without running water on Monday, prompting Kent County Council to declare a major incident across the county amid widespread outages caused by severe weather.

South East Water, the supplier serving the region, reported that approximately 25,000 properties remained affected by no or intermittent supplies as of Tuesday. The disruptions stemmed from Storm Goretti, which brought heavy rain and strong winds over the weekend, combined with freezing temperatures that led to multiple burst pipes and a power cut at a key pumping station. Officials from the company stated that these events depleted drinking water storage tanks, forcing temporary shutdowns to prevent further damage to the network.

The impacted areas span several communities, including Tunbridge Wells, Maidstone, Canterbury, Whitstable, East Grinstead, and surrounding towns in both counties. Water supplies have already been restored to locations such as Loose in Maidstone, Blean near Canterbury, Headcorn, West Kingsdown, and parts of Tunbridge Wells. In East Grinstead, restoration efforts began on Tuesday for about 16,500 properties, with...