New mum relying on neighbours amid water issues

A resident with a 10-month-old baby says she is relying on neighbours amid water issues in Kent and Sussex.

Tens of thousands of people lost supply or faced low pressure over the weekend, some for multiple days, in areas including Tunbridge Wells, East Grinstead and Maidstone.

Jamie Endrizzi-Faulkes, from Blean, said: "It's just something we need, isn't it? It's crazy in this day and age you're having to try and find out where your water is."

South East Water's (SEW) incident manager Matthew Dean apologised, adding that the flow to the area was being increased but "supplies may be intermittent until we are able to pump more water into the storage tanks than is being drawn out of the system".

Dean said it meant it was unable to advise customers when supplies would be fully restored.

Endrizzi-Faulkes explained that her family was on SEW's priority register as her daughter was 10-months-old.

Her baby also had a stomach bug and needed baths, but the family "don't have that at the moment", the 36-year-old said.

"Luckily, we've got really friendly neighbours," Endrizzi-Faulkes added.

She told the BBC that her neighbour had let them use their water butt to flush the toilet, but she "might have to move in with some family" if the issues were not resolved.

The mother, who works full time, said she had "no information on bottled water, which we should be getting" after losing supply on Sunday.

She said she had "no faith" in SEW, as her water supply also failed temporarily in the summer.

The firm said some customers in Blean would have supply problems until Tuesday after Storm Goretti "affected our ability to treat water at the normal rate" and cold weather burst local water mains.

It also explained that the area had been impacted by a short shutdown at its Thannington Water Treatment Works, which caused the level of drinking water in the storage tank serving Blean to fall "critically low".

The company previous said it was working "around the clock" to resolve the issues that had been impacting about 1,500 customers in the Blean area of Canterbury.

Nancy Missing, a florist from Frant, had intermittent supplies since Friday.

"The most concerning thing is the sanitation, we can't flush toilets," the 58-year-old said.

She, along with much of Tunbridge Wells, lost water in late November for almost a week and then was subject to a notice to boil her supply before drinking it for nine days.

Her street's bins were "already full just with plastic bottles", she said.

Missing told the BBC their area had a "massive rat problem" and was worried that the rodents could return to her home.

"We shouldn't be going without washing and general basic hygiene," she said.

She added that SEW's staff were "working their absolute butts off" but management needed someone to "shake this up".

A government source told the BBC the company had handled the water issues badly and Environment Secretary Emma Reynolds was "shocked by the lack of accountability" shown by the company.

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