Water outage: Thousands of homes without water for fourth day

Thousands of properties in East Sussex remain without water after a burst pipe on Thursday impacted supplies.

Pressure on reservoirs as a result of the outage has added to supply issues, pushing the number of households without water on Sunday to 32,500.

The damaged pipe, in remote woodland, has been replaced and was feeding water back to the treatment works, Southern Water said on Saturday.

The water company has apologised again to customers and said it was “hopeful” supply would begin to return “gradually” over the course of Sunday.

Southern Water’s Tim McMahon, told BBC Radio Sussex that homes should have started to receive water again from 10:30 BST.

He said the final properties should start to have water again by Sunday night but said it would take time to replenish dry pipes and empty toilet tanks.

Water supply may be “temperamental” over the next few days, he added.

Residents and businesses in St Leonards-on-Sea, Hastings and in Westfield were told a treatment works at Beauport would be restarted overnight.

After “stringent quality tests” the water would then be released to customers, the company said.

Four bottled water stations had reopened by 09:30 BST on Sunday.

Hour-long queues have been reported at water stations at Tesco, Asda, Sea Road and Hastings Academy.

Jakki Blackman told how her 72-year-old mother, who lives in sheltered housing in St Leonards and uses a walking frame, had six bottles of water stolen after 12 were delivered to her flat.

She said mum Christine Lawton “couldn’t get to a water station if she needed to”.

She added: “It’s heartbreaking because she’s upset and she gets panicked and anxious.”

Lesley Arshad, who is disabled, said she had been left off the company’s priority list for water delivery, despite receiving a letter confirming she was on it last year.

Southern Water said bottled water deliveries would continue throughout Sunday to customers on its priority services register.

It encouraged people to visit bottled water stations later in the day, if possible, as they were “often busiest first thing”.

“We’re sorry for the continued impact this is having and are doing everything we can to restore supplies,” the company added.

East Sussex County Council’s Godfrey Daniel has warned of the “huge impact” the outage would have on businesses already struggling with the cost of living.

The water company said compensation for affected businesses would go “beyond regulatory and statutory obligations”.

Organisers of an annual procession, due to go through Hastings on Monday, said it may not be able to go ahead if supplies were not restored.

Keith Leech, chair of trustees for the Traditional Jack in the Green event, said: “Trying to get any information out of Southern Water is like trying to get blood out of a stone.”