South East Water supply problems persist in Kent and Sussex

Bottled water stations were set up in Haywards Heath, Crawley, Crowborough and Pembury

Thousands of properties in parts of the South East that have been without water for days are seeing supplies returning, although they may not be continuous.

South East Water said water was being pumped into a reservoir serving Tunbridge Wells and supplies in the area should have returned by 10:00 GMT.

It said it hoped to restore supplies elsewhere on Thursday.

A spokesman said: "The majority of customers in Sussex have had their supplies restored overnight."

In an update at 14:00, South East Water said it had found a "major burst" in the Selsfield area of West Sussex, which prevented a drinking water storage tank refilling as quickly as expected.

As a result, supplies to Sharpthorne, Turners Hill and West Hoathly may not return until Friday morning, it said.

Additional water bottle stations have opened in the village of Pease Pottage near Crawley, and The Cowdray Arms in Balcombe near Haywards Heath, South East Water confirmed.

The firm said about 3,500 customers were still without water.

On Thursday morning South East Water said it expected "the pockets of customers in Crowborough, Wadhurst and Ticehurst areas who remain without water" would see supplies return by early afternoon, while customers in other parts of Sussex "should see supplies return by this evening."

Sarah Smith from Crowborough told the BBC she had not had water since Sunday, and the situation was "intolerable".

Large parts of Kent and Sussex have been affected by water outages

South East Water said: "Water is returning to customers in Tunbridge Wells after we were able to pump more water into our storage tank than before overnight."

The company has apologised to those affected, saying: "We're so sorry if you still have no water, or low water pressure."

The firm's chief executive, David Hinton, told BBC South East Today: "We're very confident we can get customers on before Christmas, we think that's really important.

"All the treatment works that were affected are all now back in operation."

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