Homes across South East without water because of failure at plant

A bottled water station was set up in Billingshurst as thousands in the area were affected by the outage

Hundreds of homes were left without water in parts of West Sussex and Surrey.

Southern Water apologised for the disruption, which was caused by a failure at a water plant in Hardham.

Several primary schools in Crawley, Three Bridges and Pulborough shut because of the outage, but there are no reports of secondary schools closing.

"We know that GCSEs start today and we have a plan [for] the secondary school in the area," Southern Water said.

Speaking to the BBC on Monday morning, Katy Taylor, chief customer officer for the company, said customers around Billingshurst, Horsham and Pulborough were without water for about 24 hours, but supplies were returning.

In addition, about 12,000 homes were without water in the Turner's Hill area, Ms Taylor added, but supplies were returning there, too.

People have been queuing for bottled water supplies

Three bottled water stations were set up on Sunday, which attracted huge queues.

Lorraine, a wheelchair user in Crawley, told the BBC she has had no water delivered despite being on a priority list.

She said she also has a daughter with a kidney condition which means she needs to drink large amounts of water to stop her getting infections.

"They know all this but where is [the water]?" she said.

However, Ms Taylor insisted the company had delivered water to everyone on its priority list.

She advised anyone who had not received water and still had no supply to get in touch.

"We have been delivering water non-stop since about lunchtime on Saturday," she said.

Southern Water warned customers to expect intermittent supply during the recharge

Meanwhile, in Surrey, Thames Water has apologised after "continuing problems" with supplies including in the Cranleigh and Godalming areas.

It said there had been a number of issues, including interruptions to power supplies, which had affected about 480 properties.

The company said all supplies had been restored by 13:00 BST on Monday.

Follow BBC South East on Facebook, on Twitter, and on Instagram. Send your story ideas to [e-mail].