Mid Sussex villagers’ outrage at having no water during sweltering heatwave

About 300 properties are said to be affected in Bolney, Bolnore Village, Cuckfield, Haywards Heath, Slaugham and Warninglid.

Specialist water tankers have had to be brought in, along with bottled water stations.

South East Water said the shortage is due to the extreme demand in water as temperatures hit above 30 degrees Celsius.

It added that Warninglid Water Tower and Cuckfield underground storage reservoir became low over the weekend, meaning the pumps were unable to boost supplies as normal.

But villagers argue that the water firm should have been more prepared for the crisis.

“It is a ridiculous situation,” said Neil Davies, of Cuckfield Lane, Warninglid.

“Everyone in the village is calling up South East Water and is being given a different story.

“The water board is offering no timeline as to when the service might be restored.

“It is the second time in three years we have had this.”

Nigel Gordon-Stewart, who also lives in Warninglid, described the situation as ‘deplorable’.

“We have had absolutely no water since Friday,” he said.

“It is 34 degrees and we can’t shower, flush our toilets, wash our clothes. It takes about four or five bottles to flush the toilet.

“We can’t live like normal human beings and we have to queue in the heat for bottles of water that are wrapped in plastic which completely goes against climate change.

“Having no water is pretty serious stuff – someone somewhere hasn’t done their homework, it is pretty deplorable.”

South East Water issued a warning to customers on Saturday that they could be without tap water unless its usage is cut this weekend.

It said it had seen a record-breaking demand for water due to the soaring temperatures which ‘outstripped the amount’ which could be pumped through the network.

It added that people’s staycations were ‘putting a strain’ on the country’s water network.

As a result, the water firm urged people to put away their hose pipes, garden sprinklers and garden water toys to help make sure everyone has the water they need to drink, cook, wash and clean this weekend.

But Nigel, 59, who currently lives with his daughter, 29, said the warning came too late.

“South East Water was not prepared for this,” said the business consultant.

“It is appalling management and chronically bad planning. There surely must be a crisis management team to deal with this sort of thing.

“There has been plenty of time to prepare for this during the coronavirus crisis. We are not hearing complaints from Dorset, Hampshire, or Kent, which must be getting a lot of visitors.

“It was clear that there was going to be a higher demand due to less people being on holiday and people on staycations. I just cannot find an excuse for this.”

Nigel said he fears this will happen year after year due to the extreme weather conditions.

In March, 2018, residents in Bolney and Warninglid were left without water during a cold snap dubbed the Beast of the East.

South East Water said then that supplies were interrupted as a result of the extreme weather. Residents received £100 compensation for the inconvenience.

Mid Sussex MP Mims Davies said this week’s situation was ‘totally unacceptable and avoidable’.

“I fully agree with residents on this,” she said on Monday (August 10).

“I have been contacted by around 80 of the reported 300 homes affected by intermittent supply, low water pressure or complete outage. These are local homes with vulnerable residents, including those who are sick, infirm and shielding as well as young families and businesses affected.

“I am particularly disappointed that there was no apparent forward planning bearing in mind this was not an unexpected heatwave that would result in a greater demand for water, and especially frustrated that I had to be told by constituents of this issue and not explicitly by South East Water themselves.

“Temperatures have risen into at least the mid 30’c range and access to fresh water for drinking and washing, especially around the Covid-19 challenge, has never been more important for the health and wellbeing of those unnecessarily affected by this sincerely disappointing lack of supply.”

Mrs Davies added that she had been in direct contact with South East Water on a number of occasions. She said she has helped arrange a further water station for residents in Bolnore.

She added: “South East Water is a key service provider that is not providing a service. I fully appreciate that all water companies experience unprecedented pipe failures causing low or lost water pressure on occasion – this is not the case here.

“As local residents, we all need to be considerate that water is not a finite resource and heed the request of South East Water to avoid hosepipe use for watering the garden, washing our cars and filling or topping up pools.

“In this way we can all do our part in helping those affected to return to a stable and very much need water supply as soon as possible.

“I will be looking for them to learn from this situation so those affected know this will be avoided in the future. The latest I have is that we are expecting matters should be rectified by tomorrow evening and I will be keenly following this to see this is achieved.”

Steve Andrews, head of central operations at South East Water, said on Tuesday (August 11): “Our teams have worked 24/7 trying to restore supplies to those customers in Mid Sussex impacted by no water since Friday.

“The high demand for water across our region has meant there are customers who have had no water or low pressure. Around 300 properties have had no water since Friday, others in the area have had intermittent supplies but we appreciate this has been off at key times when needed in the morning and evening.

“We have been trying to reroute water around our network and the key treated water storage tank in Cuckfield was able to fill enough overnight for us to safely restart the boosters to pump water out into the network this morning.

“This will restore supplies to those customers who desperately need it who have been off since Friday. However we need to get more water into this system and it may still be intermittent. We are working hard to try to make sure it is on for this evening, but we can’t guarantee it.

“We also expect that moving water around may mean other locations experience low pressure or no water this evening, however we need to do everything we can to get the people in that Haywards Heath, Cuckfield, Warninglid, Slaugham and Bolney area back on – that is our priority.

“We will continue to operate tankers in the area trying to inject water into the network, but it is very complex and will mean supplies continue to be intermittent.

“There are bottled water stations set up still and we have hand delivered more than 32,000 bottles across our region to our vulnerable customers that are registered on our Priority Services Register.

“As this is a rural location there are also a lot of homes and businesses with livestock. We have deployed 23 bowsers into the area to help with deliveries to these customers.

“We have sent text messages and emailed everyone in the area whose details we have. We also have staff out hand delivering letters to those impacted.

“Please be reassured we will be organising compensation for these customers. Everyone has worked tirelessly but we haven’t been able to supply these customers just when they needed it. We are very sorry and can only reiterate that we are doing everything we can and are working 24/7 to meet the demands for water – please help us by avoiding all garden water use this week. Storms are forecast and cooler weather is on its way.

“Yesterday we supplied 673 million litres of water – this is significantly more than normal – around an additional 130 million litres, close to the record demand of Friday which was 696 million litres. It is vital everyone in Mid-Sussex, West Sussex, East Sussex and Kent minimise their water use this week.”