A Kent MP has demanded the immediate resignation of South East Water's chief executive after thousands of homes and businesses in Tunbridge Wells endured a third consecutive day without a reliable water supply.
'An Utter Disgrace': MP's Fury Over Leadership Failure
Liberal Democrat MP for Tunbridge Wells, Mike Martin, has launched a scathing attack on the water company's leadership, labelling the ongoing situation "an utter disgrace". He directly blamed the suffering of vulnerable and elderly residents on what he called a "failure of leadership" by South East Water's CEO, David Hinton.
Speaking to the BBC in pouring rain, Mr Martin pointed to a previous six-day outage in 2022, claiming promises to improve crisis management had been broken. "Dave Hinton, the CEO of South East Water, who earns half a million pounds a year, must resign," he stated. "This is a total failure of leadership... All of that turned out to be completely false. This is a leadership issue and he must resign now."
Cause of the Crisis and Restoration Efforts
The supply problems, affecting up to 23,000 homes and premises, originated at the Pembury Water Treatment Works. The plant was forced to shut down on Saturday night after a "bad chemical batch" severely disrupted operations, causing local drinking water storage tanks to run dangerously low.
South East Water confirmed the treatment works has now resumed normal service. However, the company has warned that supplies will not be fully restored until Tuesday, as engineers slowly repressurise the system and clear air locks from the pipes.
Matthew Dean, South East Water's incident manager, apologised to customers and provided an update: "I’m very sorry to all our customers in Tunbridge Wells who remain without water or have low pressure tonight." He confirmed that more than 5,000 properties had already been reconnected, with around 18,000 still affected.
Community Impact and Company Response
The fallout from the prolonged cut-off has been severe. Mr Martin highlighted distressing consequences, including vulnerable people unable to self-catheterise, care homes without water, and lengthy queues for bottled water that caused gridlock in the town. Local businesses, particularly restaurants, have reportedly lost thousands of pounds.
In response, the utility company has undertaken a large-scale relief operation:
- Establishing bottled water distribution points, such as at the Upper Pantiles car park.
- Distributing more than 369,000 litres of bottled water to residents.
- Tankering over five million litres of water into the town's network to maintain supply where possible.
Mr Dean also cautioned that as water returns, customers might experience temporary discolouration due to disturbed deposits in the pipes, assuring them this was normal.
When asked about the calls for his boss's resignation, Mr Dean told The Independent that the company's "focus is entirely on returning supplies to our customers as soon as possible." He added that a thorough investigation would be launched once all customers had their water restored.
