South East Water says tap water shortages continue in Kent

South East Water said Friday that about 3,500 customers in the Whitstable area were still without tap water while another 8,700 customers across Ulcombe, Coxheath, Loose, Headcorn and Herne Bay experienced low pressure or intermittent supply. The company said it had pumped 619 million litres on Thursday, above the seasonal average, and had tankered an additional 1,753,561 litres into the network since the shortages began.

Owners of hair salons and restaurants in Whitstable reported lost revenue after closing when taps ran dry. Sarah, owner of Elise Hairdressers, said the salon cancelled all appointments on Thursday because colouring services could not be performed. Lee Murray, owner of Harbour Street Tapas, said the restaurant closed Wednesday night after running out of running water for cooking, cleaning and customer facilities.

The Whitstable School told parents it might close to all pupils except those sitting examinations on Monday if full mains supply could not be guaranteed.

Incident manager Steve Benton said supplies had returned to parts of Whitstable overnight and that water was expected to reach the remaining affected customers later Friday. Benton said the company had distributed 283,884 bottles at stations across Kent and was supporting the Queen Victoria Memorial Hospital and livestock owners with tankers.

A second incident manager, Mike Pickard, told Radio Kent that demand had eased in recent days, allowing most storage tanks to recover, but warned that another surge could reverse the gains.

The current shortages follow earlier outages between November and January that left thousands of customers without water for showers or toilets. Earlier this month, South East Water chief executive David Hinton announced plans to step down one week after chairman Chris Train resigned following a parliamentary report that expressed no confidence in the company's leadership.