Water supply to return to almost 6,000 homes

Water supplies are "anticipated" to return to about 6,000 homes and businesses in West Kent, South East Water (SEW) has said.

Most customers in and around Pembury, Matfield, Brenchley and Horsmonden should be back in supply, but some were still affected on Friday morning, SEW said.

The supply failure was caused by a burst pipe on a key main from Bewl Water Treatment Works in East Sussex.

Bottled water stations at Matfield Village Hall and at Tesco, in Pembury, will re-open on Friday morning.

SEW said repairs proved "more complex than expected".

On Thursday, two schools had to close due to having no water supply.

Steve Benton, incident manager for South East Water, apologised to customers.

He said: "Water has been returning overnight to the majority of the 5,850 properties affected by the burst, although some isolated issues remain as we continue to refill our network and work to remove airlocks in the network."

Regulator Ofwat opened an investigation into South East Water in January after repeated water supply failures to thousands of homes.

In March, SEW chief executive David Hinton told councillors in East Sussex that the widespread supply failures earlier this year had been the result of freeze-thaw conditions causing burst pipes, followed by Storm Goretti.

Some 30,000 properties had no water at the height of the issues, with many taps dry for multiple days, during which Hinton had faced calls to resign.

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