Water issues continue in Whitstable and Seasalter

A water company has apologised to customers who are still affected by supply issues which began last week, but warned that some problems will continue for several days.

At its height, up to 3,000 properties around Herne Bay, Whitstable and Seasalter lost their supply, and South East Water said the heatwave was to blame.

The company said it was having to force water from tankers into the system to clear pockets of air, which will mean groups of about 50 customers at a time will temporarily lose supply again.

The MP for the area has said it "beggars belief" there was no forward planning for the hot weather.

Steve Andrews, head of operations control at South East Water, said the company really was "truly sorry for the disruption".

He added: "I would ask all customers to use water for essential use over the next few days, just so we can get the system returned to normal.

"We're seeing really high demand and that's preventing the system recovering as it normally would do."

Rosie Duffield, the independent MP for Canterbury, has written to the company.

She told BBC Radio Kent: "It beggars belief there's no forward planning for instances like this, when we know we're expecting more houses to be built, when we know climate change is real."

Jane Bowyer from Cheesemakers of Canterbury has lost four days of production.

"This will result in perhaps a lack of cheese at Christmas" she said.

Philip Harris from the Sportsman pub in Seasalter said he had lost about £30,000.

He said: "We lost a whole Saturday, half a Friday, a whole Wednesday, so we've missed out on probably 250 to 300 customers.

"We were having to phone people an hour before they were due to be here, because the water suddenly went off."

Mr Andrews said: "We are investing into our network but we have seen a real increase in customer demand over the last few years.

"We're looking to build a new reservoir at Broadoak. We have a plan for new big trunk mains to transfer water, as there's no natural water in the Whitstable area.

"We've got more gangs than we've ever had undertaking repairs."

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