Major incident declared after supply outage leaves tens of thousands without water

The chaos sparked school closures across the Garden of England, including Lower Street in Leeds, Ulcombe C of E Primary School and Speldhurst in Tunbridge Wells.

Across the Sussex border in East Grinstead, hospital appointments at the Queen Victoria Hospital could now be carried out virtually.

“We will be reviewing the situation daily until the water supply issues are fixed," a spokesman said.

Confirming the major incident in Kent this morning, Reform UK council leader Linden Kemkaran said: "A major incident has now been declared on the basis that more households and settings have been impacted in the last 24 hours and because we are putting additional arrangements in place to prepare for further potential disruption."

South East Water said almost 30,000 properties have been impacted by the water outage across Kent and Sussex.

The utility company blamed a number of issues, including Storm Goretti and a power cut at its pumping plant.

Around 14 postcodes remain affected by the outage, South East Water added.

Collection points for bottled water have been set up and some customers have been told their supply may not return until Tuesday.

Tunbridge Wells Rugby Football Club, Headcorn Aerodrome, East Grinstead Sports Club and Queensway Car Park will all continue to operate as water collection points.

Additional collection points have been opened in East Grinstead at East Court and Kings Centre.

Mike Martin, the Liberal Democrat MP for Tunbridge Wells, told the BBC: "We're in a bizarre situation where we've privatised water and they are accountable to no-one.

"I think the chair of South East Water needs to convene the board and get a grip of what's going on."

However, the water outage has also sparked chaos for local businesses.

Matthew Turner, from the Weald of Kent Golf Course and Hotel, said: “The water is dribbling through the taps now but on Saturday it stopped completely.

"We have reserve tanks so our catering could remain open for a short time, but when it ran out we had to shut, meaning the Sunday carvery went to waste.”

“We also had 12 guests in the hotel so had portable toilets delivered for their convenience.”

In a statement on Monday morning, South East said: "We are sorry that customers in East Grinstead and the surrounding areas have had no water or intermittent supply over the weekend.

"We're working hard to restore supplies but regrettably, this situation has not improved as much as we would have liked and we anticipate that the reservoir is unlikely to return to a level where your supplies will return until tomorrow."

Southern Water, which also covers Kent and Sussex, confirmed 19,000 properties could be impacted across the Medway Towns, as well as villages near Sittingbourne and Maidstone, including Boxley, Detling, Hartlip and Bobbing.

The utility company said this morning that water should be returning to customers shortly, although those on higher ground may take longer to regain their supply.

A spokesman added: “Supplies may be intermittent throughout today as the reservoir level regains storage.

"We are truly sorry for the issues having no water may have caused you, and are doing our best to return your supply to normal as quickly as we can.”