Thousands of homes in the South East Water region have been left without water and Kent County Council has declared a major incident following the loss of water supply. South East Water’s initial annoucement on Saturday 10th Jan 2026 at 11:08 a.m. said that “regrettably”, customers in East Grinstead and the surrounding areas would begin to experience no water, intermittent supply or low pressure.

The water company added that whilst it was working to restore supplies it did not expect the situation to improve until the end of the weekend.

Since then, the scale of the outtages has become clear – among a series of ongoing updates issued by the utility a statement on Sunday afternoon said about 30,000 customers had been affected.

Southern Water also separately issued a series of announcements on its website over the weekend saying that recent events – Storm Goretti, freezing conditions, and a power outage in parts of Kent – had lowered levels in some drinking water storage reservoirs which meant there was a higher risk of supply issues in the coming days.The power outages affected sites that supply the company’s Fleete drinking water storage reservoir near Manston and also impacted its Cromers Wood drinking water storage reservoir. The water company said it had made water deliveries as a precaution for Priority Services Register customers in Ramsgate, Margate, Broadstairs, Birchington, and Westgate-on-Sea, Sittingbourne and the surrounding areas.

South West Water also said over the weekend that some customers in the Helston and surrounding areas were experiencing lower pressure than usual or loss of supply – the company said it had experienced power outages at its Water Treatment Works in Wendron due to storm Goretti. The company was also delivering bottled water to vulnerable customers and setting up bottled water stations.

South East Water due to publish update at 8.45 am this morning

A statement on South East Water's webiste says the water company will publish an update at 8.45 am this morning.

The latest update published at Sun 11th Jan 2026 at 10:16 pm last night said the company “currently have a power outage” at its site which meant is was unable to pump water.and a team was on site trying to fix the problem “as soon as possible and hopefully water can then be returned.”

A xseparate statement at 9:59 pm said the firm was sorry that customers in East Grinstead and the surrounding areas have had no water, intermittent supply or low pressure from this morning. Bottled stations closed at 10 pm tonight and are due to reopen at 9am.

“We are working hard to restore supplies but regrettably, this situation has not improved as much as we would have liked. We are sorry to all customers who may be impacted by this”, South East Water said.

According to the water company, Storm Goretti has affected its ability to treat raw water at the normal rate at its main Sussex water treatment works.

“Coupled with the outbreak of burst water mains on our network due to the freeze/thaw conditions being experienced across Sussex, our drinking water storage levels are running low.

“Once again, we apologise unreservedly for the disruption this situation is causing.” South East Water added.

BBC News, quotes the utility as blaming Storm Goretti and cold weather for the outages in East Grinstead, "essential network changes" for those in Eastbourne and issues in Hollingbourne due to "neighbouring water companies being unable to give us the bulk supplies of treated water as they normally do".

Customers in Tunbridge Wells have once again been impacted with “intermittent supplies” and have been told in an update issued at 7.26 am this morning that the water levels are expected to be stable by tomorrow. A statement on the website says the next update for the area will be provided at 5.00pm on Tuesday 13th Jan 2026 ,

Last night Kent County Council declared a major incident in Kent on the basis that more households and settings have been impacted in the last 24 hrs. The Council is putting additional arrangements in place to prepare for further potential disruption.

Commenting on X, Linden Kemkaran, the leader of Kent County Council said:

"A major incident has now been declared on the basis that more households and settings have been impacted in the last 24 hours and because we are putting additional arrangements in place to prepare for further potential disruption."

“Yesterday morning I was made aware that large parts of Kent are yet again without water.Both South East Water and Southern Water areas are affected and a lot of the issues are a result of recent freezing wetather and that big storm that swept in at the end of last week.

“There was also a brief power outtage last night which meant that water treatment works and other crtical infrastructure were without power and there are some knock-on effects from that too.

“Of course at KCC we’re doing everything we can to support the efforts to get the situation sorted, including chairing the multi-agency meetings that track the water companies efforts to hold them to account…. Frustratingly we don’t know how long this will go on form or how namy of us will be affected.