Thousands of homes in the Tunbridge Wells area have had their water supply restored following an outage over the weekend. South East Water (SEW) confirmed that approximately 7,000 properties, primarily in Tunbridge Wells and Pembury, Kent, experienced low pressure, intermittent supply, or a complete lack of water starting on Saturday morning. By Sunday evening, the company announced that supplies had returned to affected customers.
The utility provider attributed the recent disruption to a temporary instrument failure at the Tunbridge Wells water treatment works. In response to the outage, SEW established three bottled water stations in the affected region to support residents. Upon the return of supply, customers were advised that their water might appear discoloured due to harmless, naturally occurring iron and manganese deposits stirred up by changes in pressure, and were recommended to run their cold tap until it cleared.
This latest incident has drawn criticism from local residents, many of whom have faced similar issues in the past. Anthony Tappenden, a Tunbridge Wells resident who was without water, described the situation as "diabolical" and expressed a lack of confidence in the company. Alison Pitman noted that the same households were being affected repeatedly, while Charlotte Evans highlighted the unexpected nature of such problems in the modern era.
The weekend's problems follow a series of significant supply issues experienced by SEW customers in late 2025. In November of that year, 24,000 customers in the area lost supply or pressure, with an additional 30,000 homes in Kent and Sussex facing similar problems just weeks later. Those earlier disruptions were blamed on freezing temperatures and Storm Goretti, leading to a nine-day boil water notice for some customers after supplies were restored.
In light of persistent issues, industry watchdog Ofwat recently ordered South East Water to invest £30.5 million into improvements. Furthermore, SEW's annual report indicated that the company needed to secure new financing to maintain its operations, having incurred a £55 million cost from outages over the winter period. The water supplier, which serves approximately 2.3 million customers across the south-east of England, stated it was in discussions with lenders to arrange a new loan facility.