Call for 'Covid-style' help amid water disruption

"Covid-style" compensation should be made available for businesses affected by water supply issues which led to taps running dry for 24,000 properties, an MP has said.

Water had been restored to almost all the households across Kent and East Sussex by Thursday evening - six days after supply issues began due to a problem at a water treatment works.

A health alert issued by South East Water (SEW) for families to boil water remains in place, while businesses were counting the cost from a loss in trade and an increase in costs.

Tunbridge Wells MP Mike Martin called for an £18.5m recovery package, and said he was told of hotels losing £30,000, and a cafe chain losing up to £50,000.

Anita Jarrett, who lives in Sherwood, said her closest water station was in Knights Way - more than one mile from her home.

"I don't drive, so I've been relying on lifts from friends and family," she said.

"My water is OK now. When the water cut out on Saturday I had hair dye on and couldn't wash it off!"

Mr Martin has also urged residents to "stop abusing SEW technical staff on the streets repairing burst mains or airlocks in the system".

He has also warned residents to be cautious of "disinformation" on social media.

When asked if the company could guarantee the boiled water notice would be lifted according to their planned timeline, Mr Whitfield said they had "every intention of removing the 10-day boiled water notice".

Mr Whitfield said the priority was to "resolve the issue" before confirming what had caused all the problems in the first place.

He added the treatment works were "performing much better" over the last 24 hours, and the boiled water notice was implemented as a "precautionary step" while disinfection of water takes place.

"Public health is our priority," he added. "The changes we've made have resolved the issues we were seeing that led to interruptions."

Addressing the earlier confusion over some areas of Tonbridge that had been included in the boiled water notice, he said: "Customers can go to our website and enter their full postcode, that should tell them whether they are included or not.

"Communication in any event is always a challenge, we certainly accept that there are some things we could learn from, particularly in first 48 hours when we aren't sure what happened ourselves."

SEW's latest statement, published just after 08:30 GMT, said customers who live on the highest ground in Tunbridge Wells "may still be experiencing low pressures or intermittent supply while they remove the final airlocks from the network".

A spokesperson said while they "understood the frustration", they urged customers to "respect staff out in the field and at bottled water stations"

"They are working hard to do all they can to restore supplies and provide customers with water during this time," they added.

Bottled water stations will open again at 09:00 GMT at the following locations: