Southern Water: Supplies being 'gradually restored' to residents - LIVE
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Southern Water says it is working ‘around the clock’ to resolve the issue caused by a burst water main.
Follow live updates as they happen below.
Southern Water supply issues
Key Events
- Southern Water announced that customers would likely lose their water supply on Thursday (May 2) afternoon.
- Staff have been 'working around the clock' to resolve the issue.
- Customers are expected to still be without water for the duration of the weekend.
Water supplies restored in St Leonards
Southern Water customers should finally get their water supplies back in St Leonards but the water company confirmed that a number of properties are still without water.
The company said it is ‘very sorry’ for the disruption caused by the outage ‘especially over the bank holiday weekend.’
It comes as residents reach the fifth day of major disruption, following a mains pipe bursting on Thursday (May 2) afternoon.
Bottled water stations to close
All bottled water stations will close at 9pm and will reopen tomorrow morning at 8am.
Water is being 'gradually restored'
Some customers should now see their water returning gradually, while the rest should be restored by tomorrow morning, according to Southern Water.
In an update, the water supplier said: “Customers in the west of the affected area and lower-lying areas nearest to Beauport, (west and central areas of St Leonards-on-Sea, west Hastings and rural areas around Westfield), should see supplies return gradually during the rest of Sunday. Of the properties in this category, approximately half are already experiencing either a full, or intermittent, return to service.”
“Customers in the east (north of Hollington and east Hastings and rural areas east of Hastings) should start to see their supplies return by Monday morning as water levels in the network continue to rise overnight.”
Thousands more homes to lose water supplies - but the end is in sight...
In an update nobody wanted to read, Southern Water has announced about 3,500 more homes will lose water this afternoon.
The company says the ‘short-term precautionary measure’ is essential to ensure the local hospital keeps its water supplies.
There is, however, an end in sight as the water company expects supplies to be restored by tomorrow.
Hospital supplies 'maintained'
Southern Water says supplies to the Conquest Hospital have thankfully been ‘maintained throughout the incident’.
The water company announced earlier that 3,500 more homes would lose water due to a ‘short-term precautionary measure’ to ensure the hospital kept its supplies.
"We will go beyond our regulatory and statutory obligations"
Southern Water has said it will compensate businesses affected by the outage.
A spokesperson for the company said: “We recognise that the May bank holiday is an important weekend and that the loss of water supplies will have had an impact on local businesses.
“Recognising this, we will go beyond our regulatory and statutory obligations in compensating the businesses affected on a goodwill basis.
“This will be done in a fair and proportionate way and after the water supply incident has been fully resolved.”
Bottled water stations open again
All four bottled water stations are now open again. However, Southern Water says it ‘would encourage customers to consider coming later in the day’, if possible, due to the stations being busiest first thing.
"We're hopeful"
Southern Water said it is ‘hopeful’ that water supply could return gradually today (Sunday, May 5) as staff work to restart the service.
The water supplier’s latest update reads: “The team are working hard to restart service. Once the water has passed stringent quality tests, supplies will start to return for customers.
“We’re hopeful that water supply could start to return gradually over the course of Sunday with different areas getting water at different times. We will provide further updates on our website and social media from tomorrow morning.”
More residents without water
Residents in north west St Leonards-on-Sea and around the Hollington area lost their water supply last night, according to Southern Water. 31,000 residents were already without water in the area, as of yesterday morning.
Delays with bottled water deliveries
Southern Water has apologised to customers for the difficulty in accessing bottled water stations, adding that their delivery drivers are stuck in the same traffic jams.
The latest update said: “We're sorry that some of our customers have found it difficult to access our bottled water stations due to heavy traffic, and that there have been some delays with deliveries of water. Our delivery drivers are stuck in the same traffic jams but are on their way.
“Our response teams have advised that the Hastings Academy and Sea Road bottled water stations are currently serving customers more quickly, while Tesco and Asda are being restocked.”
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