SE Water Latest News

Please find the latest update from SE Water regarding water outage. If any residents or councillors need specific support please do not hesitate to contact me cllr.michael.lunn@wealden.gov.uk. It is predicted that this incident could drag on for a 1 or 2 more days.

Summary of event

We have seen very high demands for water in our Sussex region since midweek last week. The issue was compounded by a significant burst water main on Friday which impacted supplies at Peacehaven. Our Water Treatment Works at Barcombe supports this area when there are supply issues through a large diameter transfer main called the Ouse valley transfer. Unfortunately this main suffered a significant burst later on Friday and resulted in a large loss of water from our system until the burst could be isolated and repaired overnight. Supplies were restored on Saturday morning to the impacted area again using the Ouse Valley transfer. This however has had a detrimental impact on the other areas supplied by Barcombe. Barcombe is a very large water treatment works located near Lewes and supplies water out towards Ashdown Forest and East Grinstead, this water is then transferred onto Cottage Hill Reservoir which supplies the Rotherfield and Mayfield areas.

Latest Update from 7:00am call

  • We managed to return supply overnight to Cottage Hill storage reservoir but the demand for water from the local area is still outstripping what we can supply into the area, this will mean that whilst all customers will have had supplies restored it is likely that supplies will go off for some customers during peak demand this morning. Our bottled water stations at Mayfield and Rotherfield will re-open today.
  • We have located a couple of leaks which are now under repair but we do not think these are the cause of the higher demands.
  • No new areas were impacted yesterday evening although some of the re-zones we have put in place struggled during peak evening demand. We are not expecting any other areas to be impacted today but storage does remains critically low across a number of reservoirs as we look to try to balance high demands for water.
  • Bottled water stations at Rotherfield Village Hall and Mayfield Memorial Hall TN20 6PJ will be open from 9:00am.
  • Vulnerable customer deliveries completed yesterday and we will check in with all customers today and plan any further required deliveries.
  • My next incident call is at 12:00midday but I am not expecting any significant change. I will send a further update after this meeting.
  • We are hoping to start seeing the impact of our e-mail to 300,000 Kent and Sussex customers requesting customers to only use water for essential use to start impacting. Demands remained very high yesterday.
  • Our web site has been updated with ‘Red’ demand messaging and the polygons of the impacted areas so customers can follow these updates.

At this point SE Water do not require any additional support from the LRF or partners

Michael Lunn

Councillor – Representing Hadlow Down and Rotherfield (And Five Ashes and Mayfield Ward)

Wealden District Council