People in Kent and Sussex asked to use water only for essentials after outages

South East Water says demand has jumped owing to extreme heat but stops short of compulsory measures

Members of the public have been asked to use water only for essential purposes by South East Water after demand surged on Monday to 100m litres more than average.

The company has overseen water outages for hundreds of homes across Kent and Sussex over the last three days during record temperatures, and asked its customers to use their water only for drinking, washing and cooking.