Water outage disruption 'unacceptable', says MP

Parts of Kent are without water following a power cut to a treatment works

A Kent MP has called disruption to thousands of properties due to a water outage "unacceptable".

Tom Tugendhat, MP for Tonbridge, was speaking after a power cut shut down a water treatment works that supplies 5,000 properties in Sevenoaks, Hildenborough, Bidborough and Tonbridge for three days.

South East Water said on Tuesday afternoon the facility in Sevenoaks was back up and running and supplies should have returned to customers in the area, but later said some properties were still without water.

The company explained that it would work throughout the night to restore its supplies in both Sevenoaks and Tonbridge.

Customers are also being told that water may look brown, white or cloudy, but this is not harmful and should go away.

Earlier in the day, Tugendhat said: "It simply is unacceptable that schools are closed, businesses were interrupted and home lives are disturbed by something that we should all be able to take for granted - which is clean drinking water."

The MP said he had met South East Water days ago and he intended to "keep the pressure on".

He also criticised the firm for earlier telling Tonbridge residents to collect water from Speldhurst, which is five miles (8km) away.

South East Water later said it had a bottled water station at its depot in Morley Road, Tonbridge.

Resident Paul Salter said he noticed his home had no water on Tuesday morning

He said: "I'm very concerned that the water company has not been able to make sure that homes that might have been interrupted had bottled water immediately. That's a bit of an issue."

Weald of Kent Grammar School informed parents its Tonbridge campus was closed due to the site having "no water".

While Somerhill told parents on Tuesday night it did not have supply to its water mains but was hoping this would would be resolved overnight.

Paul Salter, a resident who was picking up water from Speldhurst on Tuesday morning, said: "We had no water saved in pots and pans because we had no notice, but we've been managing OK.

"We can't flush the toilets. We can't even put the kettle on to make a drink."

'Worrying time'

He says that "panic sort of sets in a little bit when you realise that you can't flush toilets".

He added: "You cant even run a bath potentially, have a shower, you've got to be very careful and you don't know how long it's going to last. It could be a day, it could be two days, it could be three days.

"It's a worrying time while the water is off."

Lauren Haywaid added: "There's a lot of people who can't get to the water that are probably still without."

South East Water has been tankering drinking water into storage tanks

Bidborough resident Sarah Bugh, who was getting water for her mother, said: "It's not nice, it puts you out of routine, it's stopped me from working."

South East Water operations director, Douglas Whitfield, told BBC South East that storms over the weekend had caused a mechanical fault that meant the treatment works' backup generator failed.

"We are really sorry to all the residents of Sevenoaks and Tonbridge. Of course this is not what we want. We really understand this has been a difficult two days for them – particularly areas that have been impacted before when we have had extreme weather," he said.

"We are putting in place plans to make sure this doesn't happen in the future and that's what we need to continue working on now to make sure this doesn't happen again."