Fury in Kent Over South East Water Outages During Heatwave

The story is a depressingly familiar one: from bank holiday Monday, thousands of homes in Kent had no water all last week (‘They’re a private company, run for profit!’: fury in Kent at South East Water’s outages, 28 May). This on the hottest week of the year so far. No water for drinking, flushing toilets, washing hands, bathing or cleaning, let alone sprinklers in the garden.

Vulnerable and elderly people and families were forced to queue in the searing heat for bottled water at water stations. Those on priority lists did not received promised deliveries and had to rely on the kindness of friends and families. In Whitstable, the first hot week of the summer promised profit. Instead, cafes, pubs, famed oyster bars and leisure centres were forced to close, resulting in thousands of pounds being lost from the local economy.

In January, a similar outage happened for several weeks in Tunbridge Wells because of an issue at Pembury treatment works. South East Water’s response then was wanting, as for several weeks people’s lives were disrupted as a basic commodity to function – running water – was not available.

Now there is similar blame-shifting: we should all conserve water, it’s a hot week, there’s been a demand spike, the pump at Charing is defective, expect more water outages as the summer goes on.

Customers in Kent pay some of the highest water bills in the country, but the service we receive is defective. South East Water is turning millions in profit. It has consistently failed to repair crumbling infrastructure and instead diverted funds into executives’ pay packets. The government needs to hold this profiteering company to account. In Kent, the temperature is rising.

Yvonne Singh

Faversham, Kent

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