Mid Sussex water supplies ‘back to normal’

Angry villagers in Bolney, Bolnore Village, Cuckfield, Haywards Heath, Slaugham and Warninglid accused South East Water of not planning ahead for the heatwave.

But today South East Water said supplies had returned to normal after it pumped an extra 150 million litres of water a day into its network during the peak period of water demand.

A spokesman said: “Teams across Sussex worked around the clock to restore supplies to affected customers in parts of the Mid-Sussex and Wealden area.

“Rainfall and cooler temperatures saw a reduction in demand and reached near normal summer levels yesterday (13 August) and tap water supplies have now been restored to all impacted customers.”

Head of operations Douglas Whitfield said: “We are really sorry to anyone who had issues with their tap water supply during the heatwave.

“We know this was incredibly frustrating given the weather and the ongoing situation with the Covid-19 pandemic.

“We believe all customers will have normal tap water supplies now.

“Demand for water hit levels we have never seen before and we have worked tirelessly to treat enough water to pump into our network to keep taps flowing.

“At the same time, we repaired two significant burst water mains in the Rotherfield and Crowborough areas which disrupted supply to many of our customers in those areas.

“We would like to thank those customers who reduced their water use during this period to help and apologise once again to those customers who had no water this week.”

Bottled water stations were set up in impacted areas but these are to be removed today.

Meanwhile, the company says it will undertake a full review into what happened.

However, many residents remain dismayed at the disruption to their supplies.

Mid Sussex Councillor Anne Jones has written to South East Water stating: “Sadly this water crisis in the Haywards Heath area is entirely predictable as it has happened here in the past.

“I cannot understand why you have not issued a hosepipe ban much earlier;

“This is not the first year that your company delayed in bringing a hosepipe ban resulting in water being required from the Bewl Water reservoir.

“We have had lockdown with Covid 19 with children not attending school for months, many people furloughed and what has been a long hot summer where watering gardens, increased use of paddling pools and swimming pools has increased demand for water.”

She said the Government should make it a planning requirement for water companies to be a statutory consultee when housing schemes are planned, questioning whether they could supply the water required for new developments.