MP Wants Water Boss to Resign

The Tunbridge Wells MP, Mike Martin, has called for the boss of South East Water to resign, as South East Water hit new snags in restoring fresh water supplies to the town.

Previous promises to restore supplies today will not be achieved because of new issues with water quality.

South East Water says the chemicals are again not working properly to get particles in the water to stick together so they can be filtered out of the drinking water.  The company says the problem could be because the chemicals could be at fault or the elements in the water might be changing due to the weather.

The latest 9.25PM South East Water bulletin states:

"We're very sorry to those customers in Tunbridge Wells who are still without water. A recurring water quality issue which caused the initial water treatment shutdown has slowed down our ability to get the system back online as quickly as we had hoped. 

"Drinking water supplies had been restored to around 12,000 properties in the Tunbridge Wells area. However, due to the water quality issue that we are now experiencing again we are unlikely to see supplies return to everyone today.

"We are very sorry for the difficulties this incident is causing your communities. We know how tough it is to be without water and we are doing all we can to restore supplies to everyone as soon as possible.

"Some of those customers who have had their tap water restored may currently be experiencing intermittent supplies once more. However please be assured that this water is totally safe to drink and undergoes strict quality control before being released into the network.

Portable toilets have now appeared in Five Ways in Tunbridge Wells town centre organised by the Borough Council.

Causes of New Water Quality Issues

Steve Andrews who's Head of operations at South East Water, also gave more details about the latest issues to BBC Radio Kent.  He said:
"It's definitely another human error. All of our equipment has been working as normal, but it's either a change in the raw water quality or a change in the blend of the chemicals that when mixed with the water is causing that reaction.

"The chemicals that we use are coagulant - they bind to the particles in the water and that enables us to remove them, to filter them out of the water before it is pumped into supply.

"So when that process doesn't work correctly, we get particles coming through the treatment process and we have to stop that before it's pumped into supply.

"We are investigating to see if we need to change the blending of those chemicals with the water that we're currently treating. It's been a really strange year with different weather climate conditions.

"And as I said, we use a number of different sources for this water treatment works. So we have to vary that chemical treatment of the water when we see the different raw water qualities."

On Tuesday afternoon, the leader of the Liberal Democrats Ed Davey was in Tunbridge Wells to see the problems for himself.

This is what Ed Davey had to say:

The Tunbridge Wells MP, Mike Martin, has branded South East Water’s emergency response as “chaotic” and condemned the company's “woeful communication.”  

24,000 properties in Tunbridge Wells lost their water supply on Sunday.

Mike Martin said on Monday night that he wanted the Chief Executive of South East Water, David Hinton, to resign for showing - what he called - a "a total failure of leadership."  This was Mike Martin's statement to the BBC:

On Tuesday morning, Mike Martin said on X (formerly Twitter): "Dave Hinton rang me up last night and ranted at me whining that I was holding him accountable. Utterly pathetic performance from someone so highly paid. I am reaching out to the Minister for Water today."

On Tuesday afternoon, the prime minister's official spokesman said they hope "the private company (SE Water)... is straining every sinew to restore provision to households as quickly as possible."

Steve Andrews, who's Head of operations at South East Water, told BBC Radio Kent that his company was working round the clock to restore supplies. He said: "It is an improving situation but it is taking time. I do apologise." Listen here:

The latest update from South East Water can be found here:
https://aqualerter.southeastwater.co.uk/interruption/138030

The 6pm SE Water statement continues:
"Our bottled water stations are remaining open today. The locations currently open are:
Tunbridge Wells Sports Centre,
St John's Rd, Royal Tunbridge Wells TN4 9TX
Odeon Cinema Knights Way, Tunbridge Wells TN2 3UW RCP Parking, Tunbridge Wells, TN2 5TP

"Our customer care team and Water Direct have continued to deliver bottled water to more than 2,000 of our most vulnerable customers who are already registered on our Priority Services Register (PSR). We have been responding to reactive delivery requests/new PSR sign ups for this service as soon as possible. Customers can sign up for our PSR by visiting southeastwater.co.uk/psr or calling 0333 000 0365.

Tuesday Mike Martin Comments on Twitter:

"Today, I met with the Minister for Water, Emma Hardy MP, and made sure that she has an accurate understanding of the situation here in Tunbridge Wells. I made sure that she understood that if this water outage continues we need national resources brought to bear in Tunbridge Wells - we have a situation where health care settings, care homes and GP surgeries are closing.

"She agreed, and we will be speaking again tomorrow. I also met the Head of Public Affairs at OFWAT, the water regulator who came to Tunbridge Wells at my invitation.

"We made sure that we had a common understanding of the situation and discussed accountability for South East Water after this appalling crisis has been resolved. OFWAT are absolutely on our side, as is the Minister for Water.

Monday's Mike Martin Statements

In his statement on Monday, Mike Martin MP said:  “When I was elected last year, David Hinton gave personal and public assurances that the lessons of previous water outages in Tunbridge Wells had been learnt.  

"In 2022, water was cut off for 6 days over Christmas; we’ve been here before and he vowed to fix things so it couldn’t happen again. We now know that is not true.  

"From the failure to provide sufficient resilience in the local network, to the terrible communications with the community, to putting in place any emergency response plan – the CEO hasn’t kept his promises to the people of Tunbridge Wells. David Hinton must resign, and if he had any integrity he would do so immediately. “  

Mike Martin also points out that initially residents in Tunbridge Wells were told to collect bottled water from another town. Then bottled water stations were only set up in central Tunbridge Wells on Mike Martin’s instigation.  

The Liberal Democrat MP said “this incident has caused chaos, anger and anxiety for people. Primary and secondary schools are closed. GP surgeries and civil buildings are closed. Businesses have been unable to trade on one of the busiest trading days of the year. Restaurants and hotels have lost thousands of pounds.  

"Care homes and vulnerable people have been left without water for hours, with many contacting the Tunbridge Wells MP personally to get bottled water delivered to them because South East Water’s phone lines were too busy.   Roads have also been gridlocked for hours as people queued to access water distribution sites."

Listen to Mike Martin's live interview with West Kent Radio on Monday morning.