Thousands of homes in Kent have been left without water during a heatwave, sparking anger among residents who accuse South East Water of prioritising profit over infrastructure. The company blamed increased demand due to extreme heat, but customers say the outages highlight a lack of investment in storage reservoirs.
Pat Prestage, 67, who lives with a disability, described herself as “spitting, fuming, angry and powerless” after losing water on Wednesday evening. Her husband spent over an hour queuing for water at a bottle station after failing to get through to the company’s emergency line. “They’re a private company, run for profit!” she said, adding that money is not being invested in needed reservoirs.
On Wednesday, 8,000 customers in Whitstable lost water, with 14,000 more in Tankerton, Ashford, and surrounding areas facing intermittent supply or low pressure. South East Water’s incident manager, Matthew Dean, said 22,000 people had been affected. The company asked customers to use water only for essential purposes.
At a water collection point near Herne Bay, hundreds of cars queued in 27°C heat. Kayce Snellgrove, 90, said she had not received any water delivery despite being on a priority list. “Absolutely disgusting, it is,” she said. “I live alone, I’m 90 years old, and I’m cut off again.”
MPs had earlier accused South East Water’s executives of incompetence over repeated outages, leading to the resignation of the chair and chief executive. Residents expressed frustration at the lack of resilience in the system. “Surely you build things into the system so you don’t get that happening,” said Martin Prestage.
South East Water apologised and said it was working to restore supplies, but warned that some customers would continue to face intermittent supply until reservoir levels were restored. The government aims to cut water use by 20% per person per day by 2038, with current usage in Britain among the highest in Europe.
