Kent's water issues hit 5th day as Maidstone sets up supply stations

The supply issues have hit the town, causing locals torely on bottled water stations.  Kristin Hawthorne reports.

Transcript

00:00It's raining, but there's no water, meaning South East has had to open another water station

00:05at Maidstone Leisure Centre for those with little to no supply in the area, and as the

00:10day continues, the traffic is continuing to build.

00:13The water in the area has been on and off for five days, but it's a lack of communication

00:18and infrastructure investment in particular that is angering local councillors and MPs.

00:23I've been working with them now for nearly 15 years, showing my age here, but they're

00:28not learning. The communications with this particular matter have been really, really

00:34bad, too little, too late, too complicated. At the end of the day, people just want to

00:40know when they can boil the kettle again to make a cup of tea. When can they take a shower?

00:46So the level of the communications has been overly complex and conflicting.

00:50Yeah, so certainly over the weekend, a lot of people were on that priority list, were

00:55waiting for visits and contacting me, and we were having to pass those details on to South

01:01East Water. It felt quite chaotic, and certainly the messages that were coming out of South East

01:07Water were pretty awful in terms of being utterly inaccurate at times. So we are liaising as best

01:15we can with South East Water so that the council can get the right information out to the public.

01:21Local residents didn't seem surprised by the problems, but they said they didn't expect

01:26it to be just as bad as it is.

01:27I was getting past a joke, really, because it's been low pressure for a little while,

01:33and I think it's all the new builds they're putting on, and they're not putting the water

01:35surprise in, are they? So I don't know. They've got to do something, and we can't live on bottled

01:40water.

01:41We stupidly moved into the area from like a mile away, and I knew that the water went on and

01:47off sometimes, but we did still move there, but we didn't know it was going to be as bad

01:54as what it is.

01:56South East Water reported at 4.55pm that pressure problems at its site, combined with a burst

02:02main, are affecting supplies in Cox Heath and Maidstone, leaving some customers with no

02:07water or reduced pressure. The company apologised for the disruption and said they are working

02:13to resolve the issue as quickly as possible. In Luce, South East Water said supply should

02:18have been restored, but customers without water can use the water station, which will

02:22remain open until 10pm.

02:25As the calls for David Hinton to resign continue to pour in, only the taps will tell if it actually

02:30makes a difference.

02:32Kristen Hawthorne for KMTV, Maidstone.