By Local Democracy Reporter Simon Finlay
County councillors have again called for urgent action as anger grows over the latest loss of water supplies in Kent.
The leader of Kent’s biggest local authority has announced plans for a new strategic partnership on water resilience after the recent disruptions during the heatwave.
The new body, the Kent Water Resilience Partnership, is to be chaired by Kent County Council (KCC) leader Cllr Linden Kemkaran and aims to bring together water companies, councils, regulators and other interested partners.
It will focus on “long-term planning, performance and public visibility” on how water challenges are being addressed.
Green Party members at KCC separately called on the council to declare a “water supply emergency”.
KCC recently carried out a “Short Focused Inquiry” which took evidence from a range of sectors, including business, agriculture, education and care.
The subsequent report was critical of the privatised utilities, particularly South East Water in its responses to critical supply failures last winter which affected tens of thousands of residents.
The latest areas to be affected include Whitstable, Sevenoaks, Ashford, Maidstone and Cranbrook.
In Thanet water has been in supply but some homes experienced low pressure. As a precautionary measure, Southern Water delivered water bottles to Priority Service residents and 20 water tankers are pumping water directly into the network.
Bottled water stations were opened and priority deliveries made on the isle over the Bank Holiday weekend after operational issues at Selling and Eastling water supply works.
Southern Water warned that reservoir levels were lower than usual and “at risk of disruption.”
The bottled water stations at Manston airport and Tesco Manston were closed this week (May 26). An update today (May 28) says: “We are currently experiencing very high demand for water across Thanet and the Isle of Sheppey. All customers are in supply as normal and our teams are working around the clock to keep water flowing.”
The company has asked people to use water wisely.
Reform UK Cllr Kemkaran said: “People across Kent are fed up with being left without water or having their supply disrupted, sometimes for days at a time, and not getting clear answers about what’s gone wrong or when it will be fixed. That’s simply not good enough.
“I intend to set up and chair a new partnership to oversee the strategic resilience of water across Kent because residents and businesses deserve to know what is happening and what is being done about it.”
She intends to bring all the main players into one forum because “responsibility is too fragmented” presently.
Cllr Kemkaran added: “This partnership intends to change that. It will shine a light on the issues affecting Kent and make sure there is clear, open scrutiny of how those responsible are responding.”
The Green Party has suggested the use of a “Councillor Call for Action” (CCfA) to refer the issue to the KCC scrutiny committee.
The Greens want KCC to declare a Kent Water Supply Emergency; invite the water companies to attend the Flood and Water Management Committee on June 10; ask the scrutiny committee to investigate if Kent’s water supply is “fit for purpose” and propose a plan to rectify it if it is not.
Many councillors are worried that the house building targets imposed on Kent are only causing further pressure on the existing infrastructure and supplies.
This morning, it was thought around 18,000 South East Water customers across Kent were still experiencing water supply problems, and businesses have been forced to close.
South East Water said the hot weather had led to “extremely high demand”.
There have been long queues as people try to get supplies from bottled water stations.
The Green Party says the largest planned new reservoir in the county is unlikely to be in use until 2039.
Green Party Cllr Rob Yates, who represents Cliftonville division, warned of troubles ahead as “we are not even in summer.”
Cllr Amelia Randall, who is a representative for Birchington Rural, said: “The Greens have made a good point at the need to declare a water emergency, but we need more than that, more than reaction politics, we actually need to start looking at prevention.
“Kent has emergency response structures, and agencies have worked hard during recent water incidents but repeated supply failures across multiple areas now show that emergency response alone is not enough. The real question is whether Kent has a sufficiently proactive, preventative and infrastructure-led resilience strategy capable of matching population growth, ageing systems and climate pressure. So, far the answer appears to be no.
“Residents do not just want crisis management. They want confidence that these failures are becoming less likely, not more frequent. KCC needs to be transparent, and they need to reconnect to housing growth and water capacity. They also need to refrain from just blaming the water company.
“We need to look at ‘how do we future proof Kent realistically’ Future points to look at would also be local energy resilience and infrastructure linked planning reform.. I have reached out to Southern Water so that I can hopefully visit and understand more about how the services work and what they see as the issue and possible resolve.”
Good to see Reform and the Greens more or less united on this issue. Now, what are Labour – both in Government and at TDC – going to do about all this endless building with the infrastructure to cope?
Reform UK Cllr Kemkaran said: “People across Kent are fed up with being left with incompetent KCC Reform waving flags, saying prayers & singing the national anthem-wasting time on pandering to our moronic, bigoted, hooligan fanbase, rather than discussing the issues of Kent residents and not getting clear answers about what’s gone wrong since we got elected, or when our second favourite thing to shout about behind immigration of course potholes will be fixed. That’s simply not good enough.
“I intend to set up another webcam meeting where I make it clear to my minions who the f’ing boss is once more & make it clear they all have to hurry up & agree with me before I go on holiday again!
What a pointless lot of waffle. Simply come up with a figure for the number of new homes in the affected areas of kent along with the average consumption per home, then wonder where all that extra water was to come from.
Water companies used to include and “infrastructure charge” in their overall bill to connect new properties to their system. So it’d be nice to know how that was spent , but it was hardly likely to have been enough for a new resevoir of three and it’s anyone’s guesss how long such projects take from inception to delivery.
Won’t be the first lot of shortages in the years ahead. Perhaps it”s time there were tiered charges for water use. Hardly unreasonable for those with paddling pools, watering the garden etc paid for their less than necessary useage.
What nobody is asking is why now? If what all the naysayers state about housing numbers is correct, then the stress on the water system would be after months of drought, not after a few days of sun? SEW cannot deliver potable water when it rains,or the wind blows, or when it gets cold, or now after a week’s sunshine. WHY?
Because SEW like Thames,and Southerm are outfits where the controlling interests have played financial jenga with the assets. Checksfield can shout all he likes, but the privatisation of water was a Tory project plain and simple, emanating from the Lederene herself. That she never envisaged the jiggery-pokery carried out by the water industry is open to question, but the idea of privatisation was built on the false premise that private industry was always more efficient than public, and that private industry would have public service ethics when administering their monopolies.
Housing pressure did not flood Hastings or release plastic veads into the seas, and pollute the waterways of Britain, but bad management and greed did.
Tell me Peter, what is the govt to do? Nationalise water? Tell us please, I want to hear what the sage of Birchington has to say, what is your plan, apart from your usual attack on Labour and especially their women?
As for Kemkaran, when given the opportunity to discuss this issue, she chose to waste time on religious observance and singing at each meeting.
By the way this is Britain, so it is an Enquiry not an Inquiry.
It’s not mandatory so no one need turn up, and if they do what then? What plan does she have? The Kent resilience forum she has now, made a right mess in Dover last bank holiday,so will a water version do any better.
However, here are some quick fixes we can do this weekend before SEW collapses into its own mess.
Firstly, suspend all non essential water use, hose pipe band, swimming pools, car washes. Next buy a shed load of rain diverted and water butt’s, and either give them away or sell them cheap, and check that they are being fitted and not being sold on ebay,that’s what drones can do.
Next insist that all new homes are fitted with grey water systems in areas in water stress (basically the whole of Kent). Next offer a 50% grant to retrofit suitable houses with grey water systems.Finally, advise all home owners and landlords on how to fit devices to save water in the home. This might bankrupt SEW and Southern but it’s their own fault. These proposals will give a breathing space so that additional water supplies, either reservoirs,pipes, or desalination can be built.
Desalination might be a runner, as all this surplus renewable energy can be used to create more water during off peak times, so that solar and wind farms don’t need to be turned off.
This is where AI might help in managing the water network, instead of the nitwits doing so now.
There a plan as well as a critique of past history.
Nationalising water would make a great start, as would the long-mooted plan of a reservoir at Fordwich – but, whatever the causes and the cure, it simply isn’t viable to build yet more houses in the area at the moment.
Meanwhile, I will carry on watering my garden (albeit from two large water barrels if/when it rains again).
George I had to read through all your epistle before reaching the most obvious solution, and thats desalination! Most Gulf states use this for their potable water, which find its way back into the sea, anyway. This country is surrounded by sea water, the furthest at any one time is about 70 miles, not far nowadays. And they are easy and cheap to build. Its the future!
All the extra houses just a prime example of the “straw that broke the camels back”. A sunny and hot bank holiday weekend, those that wash their cars and water their gardens still do, the paddling pools come out in force, people start taking multiple showers a day.
There’s no knowledge base for creating new resevoirs, kents been blessed with lots of aquifer supplied water ( quite how they’ll stand up to the levels of extraction we now have remains to be seen), the cost of new infrastructure is colossal and the planning system (along with a relatively densely populated nation) is glacial in progress.
There’d need to be considerable price rises to cover the investments and ofwat has been determined to keep prices low since privatisation,(in exchange for which it has turned a blind eye to the financial jiggery pokery the water companies have engaged in).
Governments of all hues have been complicit and as a result the water companies have a cosy layer of historical protection.
Nationalise them and we just lurch into another HS2 (or net zero, take your pick)style debacle of delay and ever increasing costs as armies of new state employees jump on the gravy train.
Seemingly there’s nothing the state can’t make a total snafu of one way or the other.