Thousands of Sussex homes without water following mains bursts
The issues are being blamed on the warmer weather
One of Sussex's water companies is urging customers to reduce demand on its network as it battles with supply issues.
Around 15,000 homes and businesses across Sussex and Kent either had no water or low pressure on Monday (December 19th) following a 300% increase in burst pipes across the South East Water region.
The firm said that the issues were caused by a thaw in the recent cold weather affecting snow and ice, leading to mains becoming fragile and cracking.
On a normal winter’s day the company extracts, treats and pumps an average of 520 million litres of drinking water a day to customers.
During the past 24 hours this has increased by more than 100 million litres to over 620 million - the equivalent of adding almost three towns the size of Maidstone or Eastbourne to its network overnight.
In a statement, South East Water said it was putting 'all available resource' into finding and fixing leaks on its 9,000 miles of pipe as well as handing out bottled water in areas such as East Grinstead.
David Hinton, CEO of South East Water, said:
"We are very sorry to our customers who are without water but we are doing everything we can in this incredibly fast moving and challenging situation.
"This has resulted in many of our drinking water storage tanks, which hold treated water before it is pumped to customers’ taps, going empty or very low.
“Although we planned for this, we cannot predict when and where pipes will burst and are reacting as quickly as possible.
"Our teams are working flat out to find, fix and repair the leaks on our pipes but we’re asking customers to help too by checking their homes, businesses, empty properties, outside taps and troughs in any fields for leaks and get them repaired as soon as possible. Leaks within properties can cause extensive damage which can be costly to repair.
Mr Hinton added that customers are being urged to limit their use as much as possible to help ease pressures.
“To help us further we would ask our customers who do have water to only use water for the essentials, take shorter showers, do not leave taps running unnecessarily and only run washing machines and dishwashers when you have a full load.
"If possible, avoid using appliances at the peak times of 7am to 9am and 4pm to 7pm. This will make a real difference.”
Updated information on areas without water and the sites of bottled water stations can be found on the South East Water website.