Photo description: A hand wearing a wristwatch holding a glass under running water. Image by Swanky Fella / Unsplash
Kent County Council has declared a major incident after approximately 30,000 homes across Kent and Sussex lost water supply, with some residents enduring five days without running water. The crisis has forced schools and libraries to close, while Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead has moved some appointments to virtual delivery.
South East Water attributes the outages to freezing conditions causing burst mains and Storm Goretti reducing treatment capacity. However, the crisis compounds severe reputational damage following the company’s controversial handling of the two-week Tunbridge Wells outage in late 2025, which the Drinking Water Inspectorate concluded was foreseeable and caused by inadequate infrastructure maintenance and testing failures.
Geographic spread and impact
The current disruption affects 16,500 properties in East Grinstead, with the remainder distributed across Kent including Tunbridge Wells, Headcorn and intermittently across Maidstone systems. Residents face no water, intermittent supply or low pressure as drinking water storage tanks run critically low following widespread leak outbreaks.
Reform-led Kent County Council leader Linden Kemkaran explained the major incident declaration: “More households and settings have been impacted in the last 24 hours and we are putting additional arrangements in place to prepare for further potential disruption.”
Government intervention escalates
The prime minister’s spokesperson called the situation “completely unacceptable,” confirming ministers are holding daily emergency meetings with South East Water and local officials. “We appreciate that for residents, they just want repeated disruption to end,” the spokesperson stated.
Water Minister Emma Hardy expressed serious concern: “I remain very concerned that people in several areas in the south-east and south-west are experiencing water supply issues following both cold weather and Storm Goretti. This is entirely unacceptable.” Hardy confirmed weekend meetings with water companies and local resilience forums, with further meetings scheduled to restore supplies and prioritise vulnerable customers and essential services.
Pattern of failure
The timing is particularly damaging for South East Water, coming weeks after CEO David Hinton faced potential parliamentary contempt warnings for testimony about the November-December Tunbridge Wells crisis. The Drinking Water Inspectorate revealed Pembury Water Treatment Works had operated sub-optimally for weeks before the shutdown, with poor filter performance, inadequate coagulation management and reliance on manual interventions while “flying blind” without electronic monitoring.
Chief Inspector Marcus Rink disclosed the company had been warned in 2024 about significant risks at Pembury and had initially refused to provide investigators with relevant information. His final report would be “not pretty reading,” he warned, expressing frustration that current legislation provides no clear pathway to sanction the company.
South East Water apologised for the disruption, however the repeated failures have raised questions about South East Water’s operational resilience, infrastructure investment and crisis management capabilities, with regulatory and political pressure mounting for accountability and systemic reform.