More than 32,000 properties still without water in Sussex

Tens of thousands of frustrated residents in East Sussex are without water for a fourth day after a pipe burst in remote woodland.

Southern Water said the problem had now been fixed but that it would take “some time” to restore supply.

“Once the water has passed stringent quality tests, supplies will start to return for customers,” it said.

More than 32,000 properties are without supplies in St Leonards and parts of Hastings, with four bottle stations set up in the towns.

Households and businesses have expressed anger at the length of the outage, coming across the bank holiday weekend when Hastings hosts several busy events.

Southern Water has said it’s “very sorry” and teams are delivering water to more than 6,000 vulnerable customers.

However, one woman who lives in sheltered accommodation told Sky News her water had been stolen from the car park.

“People were coming from outside and stopping their cars, running in and grabbing the water and took off,” said the woman – who didn’t give her name.

Other vulnerable customers have said supplies haven’t been delivered as promised.

Fixing the pipe was tricky because it was in a remote location in dense woodland, according to the water firm – which said people would be compensated in a “fair and proportionate way”.

“We’re hopeful that water supply could start to return gradually over the course of Sunday with different areas getting water at different times,” said Southern Water.

At 9.30am on Sunday, the water firm said it was “working hard to get our treatment works at Beauport up and running, which it is now, but it will take some time for water supply to return”.

The outage began on Thursday and forced some schools to close, as well as businesses such as Hastings’ White Rock Theatre.

East Sussex county councillor Godfrey Daniel said the effect on businesses would be “drastic” and one hotel was having to flush toilets with seawater.

Hastings’ Jack In The Green Festival takes place this weekend, as does the May Day Bike Run, bringing thousands to the area.

Festival chairman Keith Leech said it was the latest in a catalogue of errors by Southern Water.

He told Sky News: “This year Southern Water has managed to completely close our beach because it was covered in sewage.

“They’ve managed to flood our town centre because they couldn’t deal with the water that was coming through, and now they’ve managed to completely cut us off from water on the biggest weekend of the year.”

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Southern Water’s finance chief, Stuart Ledger, said the company wasn’t currently making a profit and is “investing everything into the network”.

The outage comes amid renewed scrutiny on water companies due to recent sewage releases into the sea and rivers, as well as the dire financial situation at Thames Water, the nation’s biggest supplier.

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