People in Kent and Sussex asked to use water only for essentials after outages

Members of the public have been asked to use water only for essential purposes by South East Water after demand surged on Monday to 100m litres more than average.

The company has overseen water outages for hundreds of homes across Kent and Sussex over the last three days during record temperatures, and asked its customers to use their water only for drinking, washing and cooking.

On Monday 670m litres of drinking water was used across the company’s supply area – almost 100m litres more than the average for this time of the year. But the company has not imposed a temporary use ban, which would prohibit using a hosepipe to fill up paddling pools, water the garden or wash the car.

Matthew Dean, head of operations control at South East Water, said the extreme temperatures had caused demand for water to surge, while storage reservoirs were running low in several parts of Kent.

“We had planned for this given the weather forecasts by increasing output at our water treatment works across our supply area and putting extra water into the network,” he said.

“Our fleet of tankers has been working 24/7 putting additional water into the network in areas where demand has been extremely high over recent days.

“However, due to the nature of water supply networks, some customers on higher ground or at the far end of the network may have low pressure or supply interruptions, especially at peak use times.

“As the hot weather is set to last a few more days, we’re asking for our customers’ help to keep taps flowing locally. We’re now asking our customers to use water for essential purposes only, for drinking, washing and cooking.”

The email sent to customers asked them to stop using jet washes, hosepipes and sprinklers, swap paddling pools for water blasters to keep kids cool, and appealed for customers not to wash their cars. It added: “Think about where you can swap tap water for recycled water. Reuse water from baths, showers and sinks in the garden … Actnow, please do all you can to cut down on everything but essential water use, which is drinking, washing and cooking.”

The appeal came as the government is being urged to mount a public campaign aimed at the whole of society to reduce water usage or the country will face extreme water shortages of 5bn litres a day by 2055.