South East Water apologises to customers in Tunbridge Wells as water still not restored

Bottled Water Bank at Odeon Cinemas which remains open until 22:00
Author: Martha TipperPublished 2nd Dec 2025

South East Water has issued another update as the ongoing water outage in Tunbridge Wells continues, affecting thousands of households due to recurring water quality issues at Pembury Water Treatment Works.

Incident Manager Matthew Dean said, “We’re very sorry to those customers in Tunbridge Wells who are still without water."

"A recurring water quality issue which caused the initial water treatment shutdown has slowed down our ability to get the system back online as quickly as we had hoped.”

Dean confirmed that the majority of households impacted will not have their water restored by this evening. He stated, “We are working closely with the local councils and resilience forum to find the best solutions for those still without supply.”

Bottled water stations remain open until 10pm at these locations:

Tunbridge Wells Sports Centre, St John's Rd, Royal Tunbridge Wells TN4 9TX

RCP Parking, Tunbridge Wells, TN2 5TP

Odeon Cinema Knights Way, Tunbridge Wells TN2 3UW

To assist residents in need, the South East Water customer care team and Water Direct are delivering bottled water to more than 2,000 vulnerable customers registered on the Priority Services Register. Residents can sign up for extra support via southeastwater.co.uk/psr .

South East Water is reportedly continuing to move water through its network, tankering over 6.5 million litres into the town and distributing more than 400,000 litres of bottled water.

Further updates and additional information can be found at South East Water’s dedicated incident webpage .

Hear all the latest news from across the UK on the hour, every hour, on Greatest Hits Radio on DAB, smartspeaker, at greatesthitsradio.co.uk, and on the Rayo app.