Skip to playerSkip to main content
  • 7 months ago
Tunbridge Wells residents continue to struggle after days without water and are fed up with living their lives out of plastic bottles.

Chloe Brewster reports.
Transcript
00:00While the south-east water outages in many areas across Kent have cleared up,
00:046,500 residents in Tunbridge Wells were yesterday told that the end was not quite in sight as they had once thought,
00:10with the earliest they get supply back being Friday morning.
00:14In the meantime, residents like Katie will be getting bottled water delivered to their door.
00:18It's all well and good that they provide all these mineral water bottles, which is fantastic,
00:23but ultimately the amount of water that you need for hygiene reasons is far beyond.
00:31If you need to wash your hands, I mean, I've got adult eczema, I'm under a dermatologist,
00:37so I can't just use any grey water that's provided.
00:40If there were refillable bottles that were provided that south-east water could provide us,
00:45I mean, they provide us these bags and one person didn't even know what it was when I asked him at the bottle stations,
00:50so I had to ask someone else.
00:53But, you know, even if there was a system where people could have access,
00:58like more central access to the water, that we could go fill up ourselves or, you know, in a rational way,
01:05I think that would certainly help.
01:06While stocks run low for Katie, they're running lower for Sam Perslow from Tunbridge Wells.
01:11In this clip sent to Kent online, a delivery driver is seen dropping off supplies to his property in the early hours.
01:17The delivery driver appears to place bottles on the doorstep,
01:20take a picture, then remove them again and go on his way.
01:23A south-east water spokesperson said it was very concerned about the footage
01:27and that it's investigating the claims immediately.
01:30Another Tunbridge Wells resident, Mark, says the water outages have forced him to get creative.
01:35I mean, one of the things that sort of until you've got a lived experience of it,
01:38you don't really think of is like something simple as flushing a toilet.
01:41So I created my own little water butt in the garden as it was raining so heavily yesterday,
01:45so I managed to collect 80 litres of water.
01:48So now as part of my daily chore, it's go outside and fill up.
01:52Every little thing is stressful.
01:54I spent half an hour heating up water to clean the kitchen and mop the floor a little bit this morning,
01:59but it probably shouldn't take half an hour of my life to do something as simple as wiping down and cleaning some basic hygiene.
02:06It's just unacceptable, really.
02:10Spokesperson for South East Water said,
02:12The 6,500 properties in Tunbridge Wells and the boosted system currently remain without water.
02:17Despite our best efforts, the local drinking water storage tanks have not refilled at the speed required.
02:22To resolve this, we must extend the outage to allow the storage tanks to fully recover.
02:27For those who do have their deliveries, fingers crossed it won't stay a dry January for very much longer.
02:34Chloe Brewster for KMTV in Tunbridge Wells.
Comments

Recommended