Thousands of homes in Kent are without water after 'failure' caused by shutdown at water treatment works

Thousands of homes in Kent are this morning without water because of a failure at a water treatment works. South East Water (SEW) said the 'instrument failure' in Tunbridge Wells yesterday morning caused a shutdown 'for a brief period'. It left people scrambling to water stations set up at a Tesco store and rugby club in the town last night and this morning. The water firm said today that around 7,000 properties have been affected, with people waking up to either their taps running dry, low pressure, or intermittent supply. According to SEW, water supplies may not return until Sunday evening at the earliest as storage tanks need to be replenished to a higher level to ensure a continuous and stable supply.The company apologised to those impacted.SEW incident manager Robert Anthony-Scorse said: 'An earlier instrument failure at our water treatment works in the Tunbridge Wells area caused the site to shut down for a short period this morning.'The site has managed to run uninterrupted this afternoon. However this, along with several days of high demand for drinking water, has impacted levels in our local drinking water storage tanks.'This means we're unable to pump water to customers, particularly those on higher ground.' South East Water staff hand out bottled water at a water station in Kent on January 13, 2026 A SEW customer stocks up her wheeled trolley with bottles of water in Kent on January 13, 2026 He added: 'We're working hard to resolve the issue as soon as possible.'The site is in operation again and we are working hard to increase the storage levels to get the booster pumps back up and running.'We want to be sure that once supplies return to customers, this will be a stable, continuous flow.'To do this, we need to allow our storage tanks to replenish to a higher level, which unfortunately means the water supplies will not return until tomorrow evening at the earliest.'SEW said in a statement this morning: 'While the site is now stable, low storage levels from this disruption and high demand mean we cannot pump water to some areas, particularly on higher ground. 'Consequently, up to 7,000 properties face low pressure, no water, or intermittent supply. To ensure a stable, continuous flow, we must allow tanks to replenish. 'We continue to deliver bottled water to Priority Services Register customers, and bottled water stations are open at the following locations: Tesco Superstore, Pembury Road, Tunbridge Wells TN2 4NE Tunbridge Wells Rugby Football Club, St. Marks Recreation Ground, Tunbridge Wells TN2 5LS. 'We are very sorry to all customers impacted by this issue.' Earlier this week, the water company was ordered to pay £30.5 million after investigations by industry watchdog Ofwat following previous supply interruptions affecting hundreds of thousands of households across Kent and Sussex.Ofwat said the redress package concludes three investigations into the supplier and includes a previously proposed £22 million fine for water supply failures between 2020 and 2023, which impacted more than 286,000 people.The regulator launched a second probe at the start of this year after further supply interruptions in Tunbridge Wells and across Kent and Sussex between November and January, which left up to 70,000 homes without water. South East Water staff hand out bottled water at a water station in Maidstone, Kent, on January 13, 2026The third investigation followed the downgrading of SEW's credit rating by Moody's in May, which meant the firm was in breach of its licence condition.SEW warned in its annual report this week that it needs to secure fresh financing to stay afloat after taking a £55 million hit from outages over the winter.The water supplier to around 2.3 million customers in the south east of England said it was in discussions with lenders to agree a new loan facility.It has enough cash to keep going until July 2027 but flagged that 'shortly after' it will need to get more financing.