Furious residents are pulling the plug on direct debits to South East Water after taps went dry for a sixth consecutive day.
Scores of households have revoked their automatic payments in defiance amid a slew of outages which left tens of thousands without supplies across Kent and Sussex this week.
It comes as regulator Ofwat said it was investigating the firm amid a fierce cross-party and public backlash over the crisis which affected more than 30,000 properties at the height of the disruption.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has described the incident as ‘appalling’ as politicians call for the £400,000 a year chief executive David Hinton to be fired.
Yesterday water had been restored to 16,500 properties in East Grinstead, but 7,500 customers in Kent remained without water, SEW said.
Dry Wells Action, a campaign group in Tunbridge Wells which is one of the worst hit areas, said that fed-up residents felt it was time that South East Water (SEW) was ‘flushed away’.
The group’s founder Jonathan Hawker, 58, said he was considering joining the growing number of people in the Forest Road area who had cancelled their direct debits in protest.
He said: ‘Whatever the excuse is today, nobody believes it. We are in the dark.
A South East Water customer arrives to collect bottled water at a water station in East Grinstead, after bad weather was blamed for more water outages in Kent and parts of Sussex
Officials distribute bottled water in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, as thousands of properties across South East England remain affected by water outages on Thursday
‘Residents have started a campaign to get people to revoke their DDs because SEW shouldn’t have the luxury of having access to people’s money.
‘There are about 75 households and I think most of them have revoked their DDs already. I think it’s a sensible approach and I might end up doing it myself.’
However, he said that the residents were not planning to withhold payments altogether, adding: ‘This is Tunbridge Wells, we are not law breakers.
‘We are not going to stop paying bills, we’re just going to stop them having access to our bank accounts.
‘They can bill us and we will pay, but they’ll have to wait for it.’
He said residents were also asking for compensation via cheque instead of the cheaper alternative of deposits into their accounts, adding: ‘They are trying to make it as costly for SEW as possible.’
Mr Hawker added: ‘What we really want is no more SEW. We need this company flushed away….They are not fit for purpose. We are up the creek without a paddle.’
He said the campaign group has been forced to organise a shower sharing scheme for locals, adding: ‘There are a lot of smelly people in need and I’m one of them.’
Workers at a bottled water station for those impacted by outages in Tunbridge Wells on Thursday
Prof Richard Dobson, 53, from Forest Road said he cancelled his direct debit to SEW when his water supply dried up.
The Kings College and UCL health data science and AI professor said: ‘I cancelled it because I’m not getting any service and I don’t see why they should be getting money reliably from me when I’m not getting a reliable service from them.
‘There is hundreds of pounds sitting in my account which they can get interest on. I will pay my bill every six months if I get water.’
A number of schools have been hit with closures caused by the outages with mock exams being delayed for some pupils.
Skinners’ Kent Academy in Tunbridge Wells informed parents it was closed until Monday – when temporary toilets are arriving – as it had ‘no faith’ in the information being provided by SEW.
While Rebecca Smith, deputy headteacher of Beechwood School, said the communications from the firm have been ‘appalling’.
The school has put online learning measures in place for pupils, but mock exams have had to be delayed.
‘Where one minute you have water and the next minute you don’t, or you don’t know when it’s coming back, there’s a huge emotional strain.
‘There’s operational strain, and financial strain as well,’ she added.
Ofwat has said that if its finds SEW has breached its conditions, the firm will be stripped of the licence, and could fall into a special administration until a new buyer is found.
It is the second time in less than two months that South East Water has failed to deliver drinking water to all its customers.
Tunbridge Wells also suffered a sustained outage in November and December, with around 24,000 properties in and around the Kent town left without drinkable supplies for almost two weeks.
The firm has said it is supporting schools, care homes, medical providers, and those with livestock with bottled water deliveries, along with supporting hospitals with tankers.
