'My awful week without water, power and internet'

A visually impaired woman has said she had a "frustrating week" enduring several days without water, power and internet connection.

On Saturday, more than 25,000 customers began experiencing water supply issues, with South East Water blaming Storm Goretti and the recent cold weather.

Lesley, who lives in East Grinstead in West Sussex, said her water supply returned on Tuesday, but it had been an "awful week" with issues with her water, power, broadband and mobile signal.

South East Water incident manager Matthew Dean apologised to affected customers, while UK Power Networks and BT Group acknowledged issues in the area.

Lesley said it had been "hugely challenging", adding: "Everyone in the area has suffered incredibly."

She added: "The amount of water we were given wasn't enough to flush water, cook and look after pets.

"I wish South East Water would be transparent and invest in infrastructure. It's unfair to residents."

Lesley said she had also been dealing with separate internet disruptions since Friday and power cuts lasting more than four hours since Sunday.

She said on Wednesday that she was still without access to her Wi-Fi, while access to her mobile network was intermittent, and she was unable to access South East Water online.

"It's been challenging for my mother, she's quite elderly and lives in different area. I couldn't speak to her and get any updates," Lesley said.

"I feel vulnerable, but luckily I have incredible neighbours who can help."

UK Power Networks said generators were installed while they replaced 21 electricity poles between 6 to 9 January.

"Following reports of low volts on 11 January, we investigated and found an overhead line fault, isolated power supplies to 64 customers at 11am for safety reasons in order to repair the line," a spokesperson said.

"Supplies were restored by 15:07 GMT. We apologise for the inconvenience caused."

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for BT Group said: "We can confirm there is an ongoing issue affecting coverage in the area and are working to resolve this priority.

"An engineer was scheduled to attend Wednesday, and we expect services to be restored following repairs."

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