South East Water customers in Whitstable warned tap water disruption set to continue

Thousands of people in Kent have been warned that disruption to their tap water supply is likely to continue over the weekend.

About 8,000 customers in the Whitstable area were affected because nearby reservoirs were at a "critical level" due to "extremely high demand", said South East Water.

It said taps should start to run again later on Friday but supplies could be patchy over the weekend.

Its incident manager Steve Benton said: "Currently there are 8,000 customers without supply in the Whitstable area because the storage reservoirs which serve the area have reached a critical level.

"Parts of Whitstable will see supplies returning this evening, and this will continue through to tomorrow morning. Tap water is likely to remain intermittent across the weekend."

South East Water said another 7,000 households in Tankerton, Ashford and surrounding areas were also getting low pressure or an intermittent supply - with a further 7,000 at risk of some supply loss on Thursday.

The firm has asked people to stop using jet washers, hosepipes, paddling pools and sprinklers.

Matthew Dean, its head of operations control, said: "We are continuing to ask customers in supply to use water for essential purposes only - for drinking, washing and cooking.

"We have bottled water collection stations already set up and are monitoring."

Tankers have also been adding water into the network in areas that are struggling.

The problems have grown significantly since Monday when South East Water said about 250 properties were affected.

The firm said it planned for the hot weather but demand was still outstripping the speed at which it could treat and pump water to customers' homes.

It said 670 million litres had been used across its area on Bank Holiday Monday, 100 million litres more than average.

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South East Water boss Dave Hinton quit earlier this month, just a week after its chairman, following demands by MPs for a change of leadership.

Mr Hinton, who had been chief executive since 2020, had previously said he would take no bonus in 2026 following an outage late last year that left tens of thousands without water for two weeks in the Tunbridge Wells area.

A report by the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee said the company was "devoid of proper leadership" and "riddled with cultural problems".

(c) Sky News 2026: South East Water customers in Whitstable warned tap water disruption set to continue