Residents blast 'deplorable' South East Water's 10-day hosepipe ban

2023-06-16

Furious gardeners blast ‘deplorable’ South East Water’s 10-day hosepipe ban which they fear will kill plants and close their pubs – with some using watering cans in desperate bid to keep local boozer open at the weekend

Some areas of Kent and East Sussex were left with little or no water this week
A pub has had to pour buckets of water down loos and soak cutlery in hot water
Gardener says £1,000 sprinklers will now be rendered ‘useless’ by hosepipe ban

Homes and businesses across Kent and Sussex are facing severe water shortages, with punters bringing filled watering cans to their village pub as it fights to stay open and gardeners expecting their plants to die during a ten-day hosepipe ban.

South East Water provoked fury today after announcing a hosepipe ban in the counties due to a record demand for drinking water – with a lack of supply leaving people unable to put out fires and forcing schools to shut.

Some residents in Kent branded the ban ‘deplorable’ and ‘appalling’ and complained it had come ‘too early’, with gardeners fearing their plants will die and families having to collect bottled water.

The Bull at Benenden in Cranbrook, Kent is having to rely on the goodwill of neighbours if it is to stay open to serve 120 guests on Father’s Day, on what is one of its busiest weekends of the year.

Lucy Barron Reid, the pub’s landlady of 19 years, has said it cannot afford to close with soaring energy bills but is battling to maintain hygiene standards as dishwashers have to be switched off and loos cannot be flushed.

Derek Lawrence, 77, at his home in Kent. He says his garden was ruined last year by following the hosepipe ban

The Bull at Benenden in Cranbrook, Kent is having to rely on the good will of neighbours if it is to stay open to serve 120 guests on Father’s Day

South East Water said the temporary hosepipe restrictions will come into force from June 26

‘We have had to completely adapt and we are doing everything we possibly can from a health and safety perspective to ensure we can stay open,’ said Lucy, who is demanding answers from the water company.

‘As soon as someone uses the toilet we have to go in straight after them and flush it with a bucket of water,’ Lucy told KentOnline. ‘We have anti-bac everywhere.’

The pub is having to sterilise cutlery in boiling water and fill up hot water tanks in the attic with water brought in by their neighbours.

She said South East Water have given her ‘countless reasons’ as to why they do not have water, from needing to refill reservoirs to holding back supply as they wait for it to rain.

With gas and electric bills rocketing to £8,000, ‘ridiculously’ high energy bills, staffing issues and the cost of living crisis, Lucy says the pub has been through the mill in recent years.

The Bull also faced a water shortage back in December, another extremely busy time of year, when Lucy said they did not have water for five days.

Lucy said she has been told the pub has not been deemed vulnerable, so suppliers have said they will not drop off emergency water supplies.

She added: ‘All we want is a definitive answer and some bottled water. I can’t see why we are not allowed to have compensation or an emergency supply.’

With a hosepipe ban due to come in later this month, residents have slammed the ‘pathetic’ move by South East Water after areas of the region were left with little or no water this week during the heatwave.

Angry gardeners say they have even spent thousands of pounds on irrigation systems for their homes – only to be able to use them on a handful of occasions due to hosepipe bans.

And those who have lived and worked abroad in countries with far warmer climes questioned why there were never such bans there.

Derek Lawrence, a retired plumber who has been living in the village of Detling, Kent, for around a decade, met the news of the impending ban with recollections of the damage of last year’s.

The 77-year-old said: ‘It ruined the garden – it all died.’

Mr Lawrence said he and his two immediate neighbours had all invested in sprinkler systems shortly before the pandemic, but are rarely able to use them during their most effective periods due to hosepipe bans.

The father-of-two said the sprinklers, which he spent more than a £1,000 on, were now rendered ‘useless’ by the ban.

Mr Lawrence said he and his two immediate neighbours had all invested in sprinkler systems shortly before the pandemic

He added, motioning to the sprawling grass beginning to turn golden in his spacious back garden: ‘You can see it is already starting to burn on the lawn.

‘I got the irrigation system so I wouldn’t have to water the garden by hand, but now it is useless.

‘Over £1,000 for the sprinklers and I have hardly used them over two years.

‘My wife tells me off if I use them during a shortage.

‘It’s one of those things. If you have got no water you have got no water, and I would rather wash than water the garden, really.

‘It is annoying though, because you put so much money into it just for your plants to wither and die.

‘I’ll do it by hand as much as I can, but last year you just couldn’t keep up with it.

‘Hopefully we will get some rain soon. I would rather it rained because it costs a fortune to water it all.

‘All the top rooted stuff is usually OK, but the lawns suffer and will look dreadful again. The weeds grow, but the lawn doesn’t.’

Malcolm Brightwell, a retired pharmaceutical worker who lives next-door to Mr Lawrence, luckily bought a ‘drip-feed’ irrigation system, which is more focused and is still allowed during the ban.

Angry gardeners say they have even spent thousands of pounds on irrigation systems for their homes – only to be able to use them on a handful of occasions due to hosepipe bans

But the 75-year-old, who has also lived in the area for a decade, branded it ‘appalling’ how the ban is imposed year after year following short spells of good weather.

He believes South East Water is lacking the infrastructure to keep Kent watered, and urgently needs an update.

He said: ‘I play golf at the London Gold Club in Ash, and they say it has been the wettest spring they have had on record. That’s in Kent.

‘Less than two weeks ago we were 12 degrees. We have a week of this, and a ban comes in. I think it’s appalling that they can’t put the infrastructure in place to prevent this.

‘The water companies are always complaining that people are using too much water, but they know what the population is and they know how much water people use. And yet, year after year it happens.

‘There’s a massive amount of new building going on in Kent without the infrastructure to deal with it.

‘Kent is probably one of the driest counties in the country, and yet they are building more and more houses each year.

‘It just seems as though it’s particularly bad in this part of the country.’

Rob and Marilyn Jarman, from Medway in Kent, compared the ban to a return to the ‘dark ages’.

Father-of-two Mr Jarman, 66, said: ‘I have lived abroad, and we never had a problem like this.

‘In Mexico and places like that, their gardens are beautiful. It’s the mismanagement of funds by the water companies.

‘I’ve just paid my water bill, so where has that money gone? We’ve only had one or two weeks of sunshine and the country is done.’

Mr Lawrance motioned to his grass and said ‘You can see it is already starting to burn on the lawn’

The engineer added he believes the problem is the same across the country, despite other neighbouring counties to Kent not suffering the same fate of a ban.

He said: ‘I think it’s all over. All of these organisations are mismanaged because they have to look after their shareholders.

‘The sewage going into the sea is not acceptable either, and that’s South East Water as well.

‘It’s all over the country, but they seem to be the chief offenders. I washed my car this morning, which I won’t be able to do in ten days’ time.

‘The houses have a hosepipe ban, but you can drive and get your car washed somewhere, so I don’t understand that.

‘It seems to get worse and worse each year. The infrastructure is the biggest problem.

‘We can’t be two days into a sunny spell and be panicking about a hosepipe ban. The storage facilities just aren’t there.

‘In this day and age, not being able to have a bath or a shower is deplorable. I lived in Romania in communist times in the 80s and 90s. They had nothing.

‘But now, they have everything, and we have nothing. The tables have turned.’

Mrs Jarman, a 63-year-old care worker, added: ‘It’s all talk and no action, all the time. We’re just Joe Public.

‘It’s terrible. It’s like going back to the dark ages. We pay all that money, and where is it going?

‘They manage to keep their gardens nice abroad, so why can’t we? We help other countries out, but who’s going to help us?’

Geoffrey and Joyce Masters, from Langway, Kent, are worried that plants they have just put in the ground won’t make it to the end of the ban.

Mr Masters, who worked as a bricklayer for 50 years before retiring, said he believes the ban has been imposed too early.

The 77-year-old said: ‘It’s a pain in the arse, really. We shouldn’t be on a hosepipe ban this early. In previous years this was a long time before a ban was imposed.

‘Our granddaughter lives in Tunbridge Wells and they were on bottled water for a long time before last Christmas – about three weeks.

‘I think they did get compensated, but it’s the inconvenience of it all. In this day and age, I don’t think that just because we are having a bit of a hot spell we should get a ban.

‘We only have a small garden, but we have got plenty of plants. We will just have to use watering cans. But I still think it’s far too early. Next week the weather could all change.

‘We have had longer spells of warm weather and no ban in the previous years. It’s a joke in Kent these days, during the hot weather, that if the weather is nice it won’t be long before a hosepipe ban is imposed.’

‘It is annoying though, because you put so much money into it just for your plants to wither and die,’ Derek said

But Anne Rees and her husband Edward were among the lucky few living in the county who are not required to adhere to the hosepipe ban.

The couple, who have four sons, live just two miles south of Maidstone in the village of Loose and are under the impression that the ban does not apply to them.

Mrs Rees, 77, said: ‘I think it’s bad. We’ve only had a few days of a heatwave. Really they should get their act together and look at all the pipe leaks they have got.

‘If I had to go and get bottles of water each day, I wouldn’t be happy. The water companies blame it on the heatwave but we haven’t even had it for a week yet.

‘We’re not affected in Loose, but down the road in Staplehurst, they were having to go and get water. It’s like a lottery. They have just warned us to use water for essential purposes.

‘People spend a lot of money on their gardens these days, only to be told not to water them. You just feel sorry for the other people, especially families with young children or elderly people. It must just be a nightmare.’

Families are being forced to pick up drinking water from bottled water stations and the firm was slammed over a fire at a farm in Rotherfield, East Sussex, last night that could not be put out until fire crews arrived because there was no water supply.

Donia Youssef, 45, a producer and writer, posted videos on Facebook today of the blaze at her parents’ farm and said they had had no water supply for a week.

She added: ‘My parents live on a farm, so all the animals are affected. And also with no water supply, people’s lives are in danger. As you can see from the fire, there was no water to put out from the home, because there was no water supply.

‘There were three animals in the room, who thankfully were rescued. But people’s lives are at risk in the blazing heat and there’s absolutely not a drop of water. No water for the toilets, there’s elderly people living in the home.’

A fire at a farm in East Sussex last night that could not be put out until firefighters arrived

Donia Youssef has posted videos of the blaze at her parents’ farm in East Sussex last night

Firefighters at the scene of the fire in East Sussex last night after they arrived to put it out

Residents arrive to pick up packs of drinking water at a bottled water station in Wadhurst today

A resident carries a pack of water from a bottled water station in Wadhurst, East Sussex, today

Louise Harvey-Quirke, of Canterbury, Kent, posted two pictures of a leak in her local area

An East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service spokeswoman said: ‘We were called at 7.58pm to Rotherfield to reports of a fire. Crews from Crowborough, Heathfield and Uckfield used one hose reel jet to extinguish the fire. No casualties were reported.’

The fire service added that its engines can ‘carry a great deal of water’ and its crews had ‘increased the number of appliances turning out to fires in the areas that are currently without water, providing an extra tank of water to any incident’.

How can you water your garden if you can’t use a hosepipe?

South East Water’s temporary use ban restricts the use of hosepipes or sprinklers to water a garden.

However, the company states that people can water their garden with tap water by hand, using a bucket or with a watering can.

They may also water their garden using greywater – such as from showers – or rainwater from a water butt through a hosepipe.

Households are also advised that they could investing in ‘drip or trickle irrigation watering systems, fitted with a pressure-reducing valve and a timer that is not handheld, that place water drip by drip directly onto the soil surface or beneath the soil surface, without any surface runoff or dispersion of water through the air using a jet or mist’.

South East Water said such devices are not banned under the hosepipe ban because they are very water efficient.

Mr Hinton said the long-term forecast for the summer is a dry period with little rainfall, adding: ‘Restricting the use of hosepipes and sprinklers to make sure we have enough water for our customers’ essential use will ensure we can serve our vulnerable customers and to protect the local environment.’

The social media announcement from South East Water was flooded with comments from angry residents who claimed the firm’s ‘failure of infrastructure’ was to blame for the issues.

Mary Ann Wattam wrote: ‘How about arranging another reservoir for us? It may help to provide water to us all including the thousands of new homes that have been built.

‘This is not acceptable. Leaks are not dealt with and every time summer comes and we have spent money on our garden plants you impose a ban. We are only in June.

‘Time things were improved. We all pay for a service that we don’t receive!’

Alison Barnard added: ‘And the reason you’re pumping more water ‘than usual’ is because there’s more housing… again failure of infrastructure. Basically it’s going to be a forever story!’

Stephanie Grainger said: ‘I am not in the habit of writing a complaint but, as I am sure many of your customers are, I am appalled at the fact that you are instituting a hosepipe ban.

‘Met Office data up to 30 March showed 111.3mm of rain fell during the month, 91 per cent more than the average.

‘How can you possibly explain the hosepipe ban being down to anything other than mismanagement and spending profits on shareholders and not infrastructure.

‘Where is our rebate for this inconvenience? That I am sure comes before shareholders profits and bosses millions in wages.’

While Mike McEntee added: ‘Disgusting. Bad infrastructure due to misappropriated funds whilst CEO’s get massive salaries and bonus. Unacceptable. Another rip-off ‘service’. Shame on you.’

Other frustrated customers accused South East Water of failing to fix ongoing leaks.

Paul Harris commented: ‘Thanks South East Water for another ban, especially as we have water leaking out of the roads all over the Canterbury area. Maybe you should look after your customers instead of your shareholders.’

Kate Romaines added: ‘How about repairing the leak in our road that has been going for well over 10 days and has been reported several times!’

And Catrina Scott wrote: ‘So we get punished when I know that in Hawkswood Road, Hailsham there was a leak for four weeks that had been reported and left water pouring everywhere, yet it’s us the paying public who get the blame. Fix the leaks then come back to us and blame us!’

Today, three schools in East Sussex partially closed due to water shortages.

Mark Cross Church of England Primary School in Crowborough said it could not open to all year groups because of reduced sanitary facilities and no running water.

Areas experiencing no or low water pressure during the week include Crowborough, Wadhurst, Mayfield, Lewes, Newhaven in East Sussex, and Biddenden, Staplehurst, Cranbrook and Ashford in Kent.

Wealden MP Nusrat Ghani has been calling on South East Water to introduce a hosepipe ban since earlier this week, blasting the company for ‘appalling’ outages across her East Sussex constituency.

‘Today is day six of misery and we’re still counting. It’s always too hot or too cold for @sewateruk to cope with demand in Wealden. We have been here before and lessons are never learnt,’ she tweeted today before the hosepipe ban was revealed.

A plea by South East Water to use only essential water for households stretching from Haywards Heath to Whitstable came in today and will be enforced from June 26

She then added, after the announcement, ‘Result! @sewateruk impose hosepipe ban – days after I demanded one- this will increase the water supply to homes, schools & farms by 10 per cent. @sewateruk please get your acted sorted by the weekend.’

Farmer with 40 cattle and heifers about to give birth is ‘hysterical’ due to water shortages

A farmer with 40 cattle and heifers about to give birth is ‘hysterical’ due to the water shortages in an East Sussex area, a councillor has said.

Wealden District councillor Michael Lunn expressed the anger at the ‘crazy situation’ in the rural area of East Sussex hit by the lack of water, and had spoken to around 20 farmers affected by the drop in supply from South East Water.

He said one farmer with 40 cattle and heifers about to give birth was ‘hysterical’ due to the water shortages.

Mr Lunn also described how another farm owner with 20 horses also has no water provision.

‘It’s really serious,’ he said, adding: ‘As far as I’m concerned, they (South East Water) are just so, so slow in responding to this crisis.

‘We were aware this was going to happen… we are not shocked or surprised, we are disappointed and we are really angry.’

Mr Lunn, a farmer himself, also rejected South East Water ‘in effect blaming residents’ over their water usage but instead believes the water company is underinvesting in its infrastructure.

He added that in communications with South East Water, the crisis will not be resolved until ‘at least Sunday’.

Also after the ban announcement, Gareth Owen-Williams, Liberal Democrat councillor on Wealden District Council, tweeted: ‘Finally, an acceptance that @sewateruk is not (fit) for purpose.

‘They have failed at the first increase in demand because their infrastructure can’t cope. So why are we allowing more construction?’

He said one farmer with 40 cattle and heifers about to give birth was ‘hysterical’ due to the water shortages.

Mr Lunn also described how another farm owner with 20 horses also has no water provision.

One resident of the Kent village of Mereworth tweeted today: ‘Endless leaks and broken pipes, poor management of water resources, a couple of weeks of dry weather and customers are hit with a hosepipe ban. Pathetic.’

Another Twitter user said: ‘South East Water introduce a hosepipe ban – this country is pathetic, bit of snow and the country stops and a bit of sun and the country stops!’

And a third tweeted: ‘The totally inept and completely incompetent @sewateruk have imposed a hosepipe ban in our area. That is NOT the solution cretins! Fix the leaks and give us the water we are paying for @Nus_Ghani.’

A fourth Twitter user, Louise Harvey-Quirke, of Canterbury posted two pictures of a leak on the road in her local area and wrote: ‘@sewateruk morning. I noticed that a hosepipe ban has been imposed on us in Kent.

‘Perhaps if water leaks such as this one (just outside Canterbury) were fixed, water restrictions would not be required, or could at least be postponed?’

South East Water is asking customers to use water for ‘essential use only’ and has set up bottled water stations across affected areas while it builds up reserves.

The shortage comes as the region has been hit by a heatwave, and according to the Met Office, a maximum temperature of 28C (82F) could continue until next Monday.

Residents in Staplehurst, Biddenden, Wadhurst and Mayfield have been left without water

A gardener at Greenwich Park in South East London today watering flowers with a hosepipe

However there is also a thunderstorm warning in place for England and Wales on Sunday, which could see up to 2.4in (60mm) of rain fall within six hours.

Another English water utility, South West Water, has had a hosepipe ban in place since April in Cornwall and Devon.

Southern Water, which supplies areas of Kent, also issued a warning yesterday that demand for water in the county was ‘outstripping supply’ as the spell of hot and dry weather continues.

The provider said demand is 15 per cent higher than expected for this time of year, and that this week has been the highest levels of use by Kent homes and businesses since last summer’s heatwave.

Other parts of Europe, generally accustomed to warmer weather than the UK, have also seen their own dry spells in recent weeks following extreme heat last year.

There are fears for crops in France and Germany and southern Europe bracing for a summer of droughts.

But strict usage controls in Britain are generally rare and are a sign of particularly dry weather which, when combined with high temperatures, has previously led to wildfires, damage to infrastructure and severe health problems for some.

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Residents blast 'deplorable' South East Water's 10-day hosepipe ban

Furious gardeners blast ‘deplorable’ South East Water’s 10-day hosepipe ban which they fear will kill plants and close their pubs – with some using watering cans in desperate bid to keep local boozer open at the weekend

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