New mains burst sees homes lose water for second weekend

South East Water customers in Tonbridge have been left without water for the second weekend in a row after another burst on a large water main.

Bottled water stations are being prepared after the "significant" burst main in Shipbourne Road at about 03:15 BST, which affected nearly 3,500 homes.

It comes after two days of disruption from 1 August, which saw 7,600 properties without water at its peak.

South East Water said on its website that it "knows this is frustrating as it is the same area that was affected last weekend" and apologised for the disruption.

Teams were on the way to the site to begin repairs, the water company said at just before 07:00.

Incident manager Matthew Dean said drinking water supplies had since been restored to 2,169 properties.

He said a different pipe had burst to the one that caused the outage last weekend.

Bottled water would also be delivered to people on the Priority Services Register and further information about water stations would be provided once they were open, he said.

The previous burst main saw water pour into the street in Shipbourne Road, with some residents complaining about possible "hygiene risks" due to not being able to flush toilets or showers.

In other parts of Kent, more than 3,000 properties in Sutton Valence, Headcorn, Ulcombe and Kingswood were also left without water earlier this week, but supplies are now beginning to return.

In July, the firm's new boss John Halsall said he had faced a "huge challenge" in improving South East Water's performance and reputation.

He took over from David Hinton, who earned £400,000 and was awarded a £115,000 bonus in 2024.

Regulator Ofwat also said in July the company had to spend £30.5m on improvements after a number of outages in recent years, including several in Tunbridge Wells.

The issues also come amid a period of prolonged hot and dry weather, which has prompted a hosepipe ban for 2.4 million South East Water customers.

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