logo
Kent residents feel 'defeated' by ongoing water supply issue

Kent residents feel 'defeated' by ongoing water supply issue

BBC News3 days ago
About 500 properties in an area of Kent are still facing water supply issues for a fourth day in a row.On Wednesday, South East Water said up to 3,000 customers in Whitstable, Seasalter and surrounding areas had no water or low pressure due to the recent heatwave.The company said it hoped to resolve the issue by Saturday and it was continuing to working as quickly as it could to restore supplies.Callum Brockhurst, 33, who lives in Kimberley Grove, said he and other residents felt "totally defeated" by the ongoing situation and it was "affecting people's physical and mental health now".
"There's has been a lack of communication from South East Water except telling us they are sorry for the disruption," he added.Mr Brockhurst said the bottled station is nearly four miles (6.4km) away from his home"It's not easy for people to access water and we don't drive," he added."We were given 12 two-litre bottles outside our house, which isn't enough to drink, cook with, clean dishes, clean clothes and clean ourselves with."
A spokesperson for South East Water said: "We are sorry to those still without water or experiencing low pressure. "We have removed some trapped air from the system, however this is a challenging and complicated process and unfortunately around 500 properties in the area are still having supply issues. "Some customers may also be experiencing aerated water whilst our works are ongoing, and once our works are completed your water supplies will return to normal."
The company said a bottled station was open on Saturday at Sainsbury's - Reeves Way, Chestfield, Whitstable, CT5 3QS.It added it would provide further updates on Saturday afternoon.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews Heatwaves: The New Normal? It used to be called ‘summer', now a hot spell has the BBC in meltdown
CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews Heatwaves: The New Normal? It used to be called ‘summer', now a hot spell has the BBC in meltdown

Daily Mail​

time4 hours ago

  • Daily Mail​

CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews Heatwaves: The New Normal? It used to be called ‘summer', now a hot spell has the BBC in meltdown

Heatwaves: The New Normal? (BBC2) Marilyn Monroe started a heat-wave in 1954, by 'letting her seat wave', in a fiery number from the musical There's No Business Like Show Business. 'Her anatomy, made the mercury, jump to 93!' But to hear the BBC tell it, you'd think there was no such thing as a heatwave before climate change. Weather presenter Sarah Keith-Lucas was having a meltdown in Heatwaves: The New Normal? as she predicted wildfires sweeping the UK and 'extreme heat' with 'extreme consequences'. This was the language of hysteria, matched with pictures of burned-out houses and forest infernos. 'When Los Angeles burned, home after home was razed to the ground,' she warned. 'In Australia, hundreds have died and millions of hectares devastated as a result of bushfires. ' Britain, too, could be on the verge of similar heatwave hell, Sarah believes, thanks to 'human-induced climate change'. We cut to clips of anxious members of the public, voicing fears of 'climate collapse'. A buildings expert declared that old buildings with the wrong sort of windows 'will just become uninhabitable'. How this will happen, he didn't explain. Maybe he was worried about rusty hinges that won't open. But a bit of WD-40 will fix that, and it's cheaper than abandoning your home and moving into an air-conditioned refuge. Temperatures above 26°C could cause thousands of deaths, Sarah claimed, citing the Office for National Statistics. Before climate change, a week of 26°C used to be known as 'summer'. Now, it's the end of civilisation. Car valets of the night: Following a fatal stabbing, Mark and Johnny set about restoring a blood-soaked Renault to showroom condition for a rental fleet, on Crime Scene Cleaners (Ch4). Somebody could have died in your next holiday hire vehicle. There's a grim thought. Sarah did admit that a heatwave happened in 1976, though she reported it as a moment of national crisis, with police evacuating countless people from their homes, probably because they couldn't open their windows. But the problem, according to Candice Howarth — spokeswoman for the Quadrature Climate Foundation — is that 'we culturally and historically aren't used to heatwaves in the UK'. I'm sure she's right. Cinema-goers in the Fifties probably came out scratching their heads and saying, 'You know what, Doris, culturally and historically I've got no idea what Marilyn Monroe was singing about.' The reality is that anything can become an alarming new phenomenon if it's served with a spin of panic. Sarah took us into her BBC weather studio, a cubbyhole with a camera and a green screen, and showed us a map on which the jet stream locked Britain under a 'heat dome'. As the temperatures rose, the colours on the map turned a more vivid red. By the time it hit 30°C (86°F), the UK was glowing fire-alarm crimson. Then she met a farmer who was planning to cope with 'weather extremities' by planting a vineyard. Sadly, Sarah was left holding an empty bottle because the vines haven't produced grapes yet.

Wildfires are ‘disaster waiting to happen', farmers warn
Wildfires are ‘disaster waiting to happen', farmers warn

Telegraph

time11 hours ago

  • Telegraph

Wildfires are ‘disaster waiting to happen', farmers warn

Farmers have warned that wildfires are a 'disaster waiting to happen' as a third heatwave looms. The Met Office has issued seven red 'very high' UV alerts ahead of the third heatwave in four weeks. Temperatures are expected to climb into the low 30s again from Wednesday into next week, following the UK's warmest spring on record and driest for more than 50 years. Gareth Wyn Jones, a sheep farmer and campaigner from Llanfairfechan, has sounded the alarm over the threat of wildfires on arid UK farmland. He told The Telegraph: 'Of course we are fearful, we've got mountains like tinder boxes and no one listens.' Mr Wyn Jones, whose family have farmed in Wales for over 370 years, said the incentivised removal of grazing sheep from upland areas was creating a dangerous build-up of dry vegetation. 'They don't understand that ruminants keep these areas from burning,' he said, adding: 'It's a disaster waiting to happen. 'Steve Reed [the Secretary of State for Environment and Rural Affairs] wants to clear animals from the uplands and give more money to help wildfires.' Natural England, the Government's nature watchdog, has been incentivising farmers to remove animals to protect wildlife and prevent overgrazing, leading to sheep numbers in England falling by 7 per cent in the last two years. The Moorland Association has estimated that there are now 600,000 tons of extra vegetation being left on the land each year. Earlier this year, Andrew Gilruth, the association's chief executive, said that 'sooner or later there will be a strong wind blowing the wrong way with our northern cities most at risk', adding: 'It may happen under Angela Rayner's watch.' In March, fire crews tackling a moorland fire in Cumbria said that the 'fire loading' of dead vegetation was 'increasing the risk of wildfire'. By April, more than 29,200 hectares (292sq km) of land had been scorched by wildfires, according to satellite imagery from the Global Wildfire Information System. This was already higher than the total for any year since the researchers started recording data in 2012. Last week, a wildfire broke out in the Shropshire Hills, prompting homes and businesses to be evacuated while farmers tackled the blaze. In 2023 the cost of farm fires in the UK increased by 37 per cent to an estimated £110.3 million, according to NFU Mutual's latest data. Rachel Hallos, the NFU vice-president, said wildfires were 'a serious threat to the countryside'. She told The Telegraph: 'We can see how fast these fires can spread, putting both people and animals at risk and destroying valuable crops, grassland and infrastructure. 'Farmers are on the front line of this crisis, but we can't tackle this alone. It's vital that government and fire services work with us on prevention, education and response and urgently review whether some changes in land management – particularly in the uplands – could be increasing wildfire risk as hotter, drier summers become more frequent.' Ms Hallos urged all those enjoying the countryside this summer to do their part in abiding by the Countryside Code, avoiding open fires and reporting any signs of fire immediately. 'Protecting our farmland means protecting our food, our environment and our rural way of life,' she added. The Met Office's definition of a heatwave is three consecutive days of temperatures exceeding the 'heatwave threshold' for that part of the country. For most of the UK, this is 25C, with slightly higher numbers for the South and East, rising to 28C in London. Dan Holley, the deputy chief meteorologist, said that 'this heatwave is likely to last longer than previous ones so far this summer and affect a wider area'. He explained that high pressure from the Atlantic would 'gradually exert influence over the UK this week', with temperatures building from 28C on Wednesday, to 30C on Thursday to 32C on Friday. 'By this stage, heatwave criteria are likely to be met in parts of England and Wales, and in parts of Scotland over the weekend,' he said, adding: 'High temperatures are likely to persist into the weekend, especially away from coasts with onshore winds, reaching the low 30s in portions of England and Wales, and accompanied by rising humidity and warmer nights.' Waters to the south of the UK are also experiencing a significant marine heatwave, with the conditions expected to persist and intensify over the coming week. A spokesman for the National Fire Chiefs Council told The Telegraph: 'With the long, dry and warm conditions continuing, we will see an increased risk of wildfires. This is especially important in those areas where communities border the countryside and there is greater risk to life and property. 'Effective land management will reduce or at least mitigate some of that risk to those lives and property. This might be done on an individual or community level – for example, with projects like Firewise-UK which encourages communities to work together to reduce their wildfire risk by taking practical steps in the area around the home and garden – or by land managers on a larger scale.'

South East Water says supply issue improving but not yet fixed
South East Water says supply issue improving but not yet fixed

BBC News

time16 hours ago

  • BBC News

South East Water says supply issue improving but not yet fixed

An ongoing water supply issue in Kent is improving but has not been "completely fixed" yet, with about 500 properties remaining affected for a sixth day, South East Water has Wednesday, it said up to 3,000 customers in Whitstable, Seasalter and surrounding areas had no water or low pressure due to the recent the number of affected homes has reduced, the company's water supply director, Douglas Whitfield, could not promise a total resolution by told BBC Radio Kent: "That's certainly what we're hoping [but] I wouldn't like to 100% commit to that because if I do then something else could happen which means that's not the case." Mr Whitfield said the Seasalter area had seen a "good return to supply" and "all those customers should have their normal mains supply back on now", but there were "intermittent" issues around the Wraik Hill and Yorkletts areas."The last area we need to get on is the Wraik Hill area which has benefitted from some boosters which suck water from one of our storage tanks, and they're still currently airlocked," he boosters ran for a period on Sunday night, but "tripped off" on Monday morning, he said."Water will be injected from a tanker into the area," he said, adding that supply should be returned later on Monday. Meanwhile, he said a fault on one of the apparatus on the network needed to be repaired and replaced, but it was a complicated process."It's a very deep main, encased in concrete, and will require us to isolate that main to do the repair. Obviously we can't do that until supplies are back in," he bottled water stations at Sainsbury's on Reeves Way in Chestfield, and at 129C Faversham Road, Seasalter, in Whitstable, remain open on Whitfield also promised customers would be compensated in due for the outage, he said: "This is not the service we want to give to customers... it's been a very challenging week."

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store