Villages left without water during
As the UK sweltered during the hottest day on record, a number of villages were left without water.
Residents experienced issues with supplies on Tuesday afternoon, either with low pressure or taps simply running dry.
Affected locations included Yalding, Paddock Wood, Seven Mile Lane, Wateringbury, Bow Hill, West and East Peckham and Hadlow.
The issue started at around 1.30pm and most had supplies restored by 9am yesterday (Wednesday).
South East Water apologised and said it was due to its production running at maximum capacity.
The firm said: “We’re so sorry to our customers who have no water or low supply. We are aware of the situation and have notified our technical team.
“We supply 520 million litres of water daily, through 9,000 miles of pipes. Throughout the summer months, this goes up to 540 million litres of water.
“Currently, our production sites are running at maximum capacity while we supply more than 600 million litres a day to 2.3 million customers.”
A bottled water station was set up at the Village Hall in Bush Road in East Peckham and another in Comp Lane, Borough Green.
But residents complained they were too far away. June Chapman of Yalding Village Post Office, said: “We were given no official information. I heard there was water being handed out at Wrotham so I drove there to collect some for our elderly residents in the almshouses – but when I got there they had run out. I was redirected to East Peckham where I did pick some up.”.
Sonia and Michele Martin, of Lyngs Close, said: “Neither of us drive. We can’t get to East Peckham. Why didn’t the water company deposit some at the village hall?”
Mathew Graham, of Lyngs Close, said his supply went off completely at midday on Tuesday and didn’t return until Wednesday morning. He said: “Even now it’s coming out yellow.”
Julie Hoskings, of Vicarage Road, Yalding, also lost supply. She said: “There was no warning, although for some time the water has been tasting terrible.
“My husband came home from working in London all day, desperate for a shower. He ended up washing outside in the kids’ paddling pool!”
Meanwhile, staff from South East Coast Ambulance’s control centre in Heath Road, Coxheath, were forced to relocate when their building lost water on Tuesday morning.
The site usually has up to 40 people working at any one time.
Staff were moved to the service’s second site in Crawley, as well as to the 111 call centre in Ashford, before returning in the afternoon once the problem had been resolved.
An ambulance service spokesman said: “We have enacted well-rehearsed contingency plans to ensure we continue to deliver a service to patients including moving staff to our West EOC in Crawley and our 111 call centre in Ashford, Kent.
“We continue to be extremely busy. Please support us by continuing to only call 999 for serious or life-threatening emergencies as our staff work hard to respond to everyone who needs us as quickly as possible.
“We are working closely with our water supplier to ensure we can return to our normal working as quickly as possible. Thank you for your patience and support.”
South East Water’s incident manager Richard Sands said: “We are experiencing extremely high levels of demand for water, pumping out more than 120 million litres of additional water to customer taps daily – the same as adding the equivalent of half of Kent onto our supply area.
“Unfortunately, due to this high demand coupled with a local power issue last night there was an impact in the Coxheath area, where the South East Coast Ambulance’s centre is located.
“This issue has been resolved and we will keep SECAmb informed of the situation, and will be working with them on their contingency plans to provide further resilience in the future.”
The problems occurred on what has been recorded as the hottest day of the year – set in Coningsby, in Lincolnshire,
‘It is the second time this has happened. Exactly the same thing occurred three years ago’
where the mercury reached 40.3C. In Kent it was around 39C.
A rare red weather warning was in place on Monday and Tuesday. The Met Office warned of adverse health effects that could lead to serious illness or danger to life, while many schools decided to close and commuters were warned against travelling unless necessary.
Tuesday was not the first time residents in Paddock Wood had faced water issues.
Trouble began at around 5am on Sunday when a main burst in Maidstone Road, not far from the entrance to Mascalls School.
Neighbour Julie Comeau said: “Our supply went off about 11.15am and didn’t come back till 7pm.
“Fortunately our kettle was full and my husband has already got in the habit of keeping a couple of bottles of water in the fridge to keep them cool so we were okay.”
She said: “It did mean I had to go round my mum’s house in St Andrew’s Road though for a bath; they still had water.”
A resident of one of the homes who found their yard flooded said: “South East Water were very good. They soon had it fixed and then they jet-washed around our property. But it is the second time this has happened. Exactly the same thing occurred three years ago.”
Next to go, was the water main further along Maidstone Road near the bridge over the railway line.
South East Water engineers were quickly able to isolate that section of the water main. Around 100 homes lost their supply.
The third and and fourth leaks were both in Commercial Road.
Ray Porritt, manager of the Aspens charity shop, noticed water pouring from two inspection covers in the pavement at noon on Sunday.
Manager of the Hospice in the Weald charity shop, Debbie Golding, said: “When I came in we had no water. With it expected to be the hottest day ever, we took the decision to close the shop and send our volunteers – who are mostly elderly – home. Though by 11am our water was back on.”
Many businesses saw no loss of supply, others only briefly.
The Paddock Wood Kebab Shop said they were warned their supply would go off at 10pm on Sunday, but only for 10 minutes. “They were as good as their word,” they said.
Less happy was the site manager at the Churchill site.
The road was dug up immediately outside the site entrance, leaving no access for his delivery lorries.
Two large HGVs loaded with preformed concrete blocks were parked up in Commercial Road unable to make their delivery, having travelled down from Scotland especially with their load.
Churchill’s manager said: “If we have to send the deliveries back, it could cost us £10,000.”
A number of South East Water contractors were loitering around outside Greggs, but
they were unable to get on with the repair until a grabber lorry arrived, which fortunately did show up at about 1pm.
Mr Porritt was blistering in his criticism. He said: “It’s crazy. The water contractors are sitting around, while these two massive lorries clog up the road and no-one can get on with anything.”
Meanwhile water continued to trickle out of the inspection covers, and Mr Porritt continued to sweep it away.
No-one in Paddock Wood said they had received any bottled water from South East Water during the disruption.
Meanwhile, residents on the Isle of Sheppey was cut off for several days after two major leaks. The heatwave was brought to an end on Tuesday night, with a dramatic electrical storm. The Met Office is now warning of potential floods.