Businesses hit by water outage due to burst main

South East Water said the repairs to a burst pipe in Haywards Heath were "complex"

Properties in parts of West Sussex were left without water for more than a day due to a burst pipe.

At 08:59 on Thursday, South East Water said it would look into the issue near Haywards Heath, and that the "very complex" repair had been completed at 20:43 on Friday with water slowly returning to the pipework.

A number of businesses in the town had been forced to close temporarily while repair work was carried out.

Incident manager Dave Harvey said supplies to all households had been restored on Thursday afternoon, but two care homes and a property close to the burst remained without water while the repairs took place.

"We’re sorry it took longer than anticipated to complete the repair. This was due to complexities at the site of the burst,” he said.

South East Water said 1,500 properties were impacted on Thursday, but less than 50 were affected while it completed the repairs.

'Around the clock'

Customers had originally been told that repair work was expected to be completed by Friday morning.

At 16:54 on Thursday, South East Water said supplies had been restored to a majority of impacted customers, but bottled water was being delivered to those still facing issues.

The firm had said it had been working "around the clock" to fix the burst main.

The Miller and Carter restaurant said it had no water and was unable to open, but confirmed the issue had been resolved by 14:21 on Thursday.

The Beech Hurst restaurant also said it was forced to close because of the water outage at 12:30 on Friday.

Dolphins Practice, a GP surgery, said that it was staying open despite being hit by the outage.