All we know with 'major incident' declared as thousands suffer water outage

Tens of thousands of people across South East England are without water, as Kent County Council (KCC) declared a major incident.

Both Southern Water and South East Water (SEW) - which supply parts of Kent, Surrey and Sussex - said cold weather brought by Storm Goretti and a power cut at pumping plants were to blame for the outages. Linden Kemkaran, leader of KCC, declared a major incident across the county on Monday morning, saying more households have been impacted in the last 24 hours.

"We are putting additional arrangements in place to prepare for further potential disruption," she said in a statement on X. The issue has forced a number of schools in Kent and Sussex to close on the first day of the week.

It comes after 24,000 properties in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, spent days without any running water, and almost two weeks without drinkable water last month. Here is what you need to know.

Where is affected? Currently, roughly 30,000 properties across the two counties are impacted, South East Water said in a statement to Sky News. "This includes 16,500 properties in East Grinstead and the surrounding areas in Sussex, with parts of Tunbridge Wells also affected, along with some localised issues in other parts of Kent," the company said.

At the time of writing 11 postcodes across four areas are still experiencing little to no water supply, according to the SEW website. These include: • Maidstone• West Sussex and surrounding areas• Tunbridge Wells• Canterbury• Whitstable SEW said supplies to East Grinstead, West Sussex, and Blean, Maidstone, are not expected to return until Tuesday.

Southern Water said on 11 January that households in Thanet, Sittingbourne, Medway and surrounding areas are currently not experiencing a loss of water supply, but some drinking water storage reservoirs are at low levels due to Storm Goretti. The company said this could mean there is a "higher risk of supply issues in the coming days" but it is "taking action now to do all we can to prevent that".

What caused the problem? SEW said Storm Goretti, which hit the UK last week, affected its ability to "treat the raw water at the normal rate at our main Sussex water treatment works". It said this, coupled with the outbreak of burst water mains due to freezing conditions across Sussex, means its drinking water storage levels are running low.

SEW incident manager Mike Court said: "We're sorry to our customers across Kent and Sussex who are experiencing issues with their drinking water supply, including no water, intermittent supply interruptions or low pressure." He said water treatment works continue to operate at full capacity and tankers are "pumping water directly into the storage tanks and network to increase the amount of water available in the affected areas". Repair teams are also working "around the clock" to fix leaks and bursts, Mr Court said.

Read more from Sky News:Victims of Bolton crash namedOfcom investigating X 'Extremely frustrating' Dave and Valerie Matson have lived in and around Tunbridge Wells for 55 years. They told Sky News that the current water outages are "extremely frustrating".

"I know it's jolly cold, but this should not happen," Mrs Matson said. Mr Matson, a former director of a company, said it has only been a short while since residents in Tunbridge Wells were last affected by water outages.

"It destroyed Tunbridge Wells in the run-up to Christmas," he said. "Literally all the shops were shut...

and the restaurants, normally they are rammed in December, but they have lost thousands and thousands. I think it is absolutely appalling." Mr Matson put the problems down to "greed and incompetence" of water companies, adding: "They have got a duty to their customers, they have got to talk to their shareholders and say 'we have got to spend money, we have got to do what we should have done over the years'." He added: "We can cope with it, but I feel so sorry for the vulnerable people and businesses.

It is hard enough for shops in this county and across the UK." Where are bottled water stations located? Multiple bottled water stations have been set up in the area to distribute water to local residents until supplies are fully restored. SEW said its customer care team is also delivering bottled water to the customers on our Priority Services Register who are most in need and we have carried out 5,700 deliveries of bottled water over the weekend.

The company said the following stations are open until 10pm: • Kings Centre - Moat Rd, East Grinstead RH19 3LN • East Grinstead Sports Club - Saint Hill Rd, East Grinstead RH19 4JU • East Court, College Lane, East Grinstead, West Sussex RH19 3LT • Tunbridge St Marks Recreation Ground, Tunbridge Wells TN2 5LS Recurring problems at South East Water In 2023, SEW was found to be the worst company for supply interruptions in the UK. Since then there have been multiple high-profile outages.

The last was in December 2025, when 24,000 people suffered days without water in Tunbridge Wells after a "water quality issue" at the Pembury Water Treatment Works. Earlier this month, chief executive of SEW David Hinton was criticised by MPs for a "fundamentally lacking" human response to the crisis during an Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee hearing.

One committee member said they were "quite shocked" at the "lack of accountability" the chief executive was taking for the incident, although he did begin his questioning with an apology to customers. He blamed a lack of infrastructure in the South East for the failures and said that the risks are "inevitable" without investment..