‘They’re a private company, run for profit!’: fury in Kent at South East Water’s outages

Water company blames increased demand amid extreme heat, but customers want answers about lack of storage reservoirs

“Spitting, fuming, angry and powerless” is how Pat Prestage describes her emotions after a water outage that has affected thousands of homes in Kent during a May heatwave.

On Wednesday, 8,000 South East Water customers in Whitstable lost water, with 14,000 more in Tankerton, Ashford, and its surrounding areas facing intermittent supply or low pressure. South East Water’s incident manager, Matthew Dean, said on Thursday that 22,000 people had had water supply problems.