Running water back on for hundreds after Christmas outage

Southern Water has apologised to hundreds of households in East Sussex after they were left without running water on Christmas Day.

Around 100 people across households in Hastings experienced little water pressure or no water at all after a burst water main.

Affected households include those in the TN34, TN35, TN37 and TN38 postcode areas, with the water company providing bottled water stations for impacted residents.

In an update on Boxing Day, Southern Water said the supply should be ‘running as normal’ and apologised to households for the disruption over the festive period.

A spokesperson for Southern Water said: ‘Thank you for your patience and support, we’re very sorry this happened, especially over the Christmas break.’

They added that residents may experience ‘a slight change in odour and discolouration’ in their tap water, but said that this is ‘normal after intermittent loss of water or low pressure in the network’.

The company said the disruption was a result of ‘very low’ water levels at Fairlight reservoir and a power outage at Brede water supply works.

Southern Water said it has since closed its bottled water station in Pelham Place car park, adding that the reservoir levels are ‘slowly improving’.

Local Green Party councillor, Jo Walker, said residents lost water at around 4pm.

One resident contacted Ms Walker, saying she had to go to a neighbour’s house for water, while another was forced to use blankets for warmth after losing their heating.

‘There have been a lot of neighbourly niceties, people going around and making sure their neighbours are OK, delivering them bottles of water, to making sure that everyone’s actually got some water to drink,’ Ms Walked said.

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.