Frequently Asked Questions

Yes. If you have running water, it is safe to drink unless we have specifically contacted you to tell you otherwise. The water in our network remains treated to the highest standards. The issue is the quantity available and pumping it to you, not the quality.

All bottled water provided by South East Water from a bottled water station, or that we deliver to your house, or premises, is safe to use for baby formula.

Some bottled water types may not be suitable for baby formula due to high salt levels (preferable sodium chloride concentrations should be less than 20mg/l, but not more than 200mg/l). Any bottled water that you purchase, please check the sodium chloride concentrations before using for baby formula.

Water used for baby formula must be boiled to at least 70°C, regardless of whether it comes from the tap or a bottle. Let the formula solution cool before you give it to your baby. You should follow the instructions on the formula packaging.

We need locations with very large car parks to safely manage the flow of customer traffic and the heavy goods vehicles delivering the pallets. Smaller local car parks often cannot handle the logistics safely.

Our priority is getting water to our most vulnerable customers on our Priority Services Register (PSR), hospitals, care homes and schools. We urge farmers and land owners to activate their own contingency plans for water, though we will try to assist where we can if the situation is critical.

This is absolutely not true. The interruptions are down to physics; when the water storage tank drains too low, the pumps physically cannot push water through our pipes to your home, and therefore automatically shut down to avoid any damage. When the tank levels rise high enough, the pumps turn back on again.

Compensation from the December Boil Water Notice incident was calculated based on the specific amount of time a property was without water. Because different areas (and different streets) were affected for different durations, the compensation amount will vary between customers.

We invest millions of pounds every year upgrading our network. However, the recent weather conditions involved a rapid “freeze” followed by a sudden “thaw”. This causes ground movement and snaps pipes regardless of their age. Sadly, this is a national issue, and water companies across the UK are currently facing similar challenges.

No. Tankering is a standard procedure to help “top up” the storage tanks when demand for water is high in certain areas. It helps the situation, it does not cause leaks or bursts.

Water companies across the UK operate as a regional network. It is standard practice to share resources and move water between regions to ensure resilience. This is a planned part of how we manage water resources.

You are right that mains are buried deep to prevent the water inside freezing. However, the issue isn’t always the water freezing; it is the ground around the pipe expanding and contracting due to the temperature changes. This shift in the ground puts immense pressure on the pipes and causes them to leak and burst.

We are trying to be as honest as possible with the information we have at the time. However, recharging our network is really complex. As we refill and repressurise the pipes, we often find airlocks or new bursts that we didn’t find before. These issues can slow down the recovery, causing our estimated times to slip.

We have formally declared this as a major incident. This allows us to work directly with the Local Resilience Forum (LRF), which includes the Police, Fire Service, Councils and Health Services, to coordinate the response. We are already utilising all available support.

David Hinton, Chief Executive, remains committed to resolving the immediate issues facing customers in both Kent and Sussex, whilst continuing to seek to obtain the investment to deliver the much needed improvements in resilience to the South East Water network, detailed in the our Business Plan.

Water companies have a statutory duty to connect new homes approved by local councils. However, we plan our water resources 50 years in advance to ensure we can meet this demand. The current issue is not a lack of water resources, but a failure caused by the recent weather conditions.

We are constantly replacing and upgrading aging and damaged pipes. However, extreme freeze/thaw events are becoming more frequent. We are reviewing our winter resilience plans to see how we can better protect our network against these sharp temperature changes in the future.

We have increased our leakage teams, are using satellite technology to spot leaks underground, and are monitoring weather patterns closely to prepare our network for future cold weather.