 | This article may require copy editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone, or spelling.(December 2025) |
| Date | 29 November - 12 December, but concerns remain |
|---|---|
| Location | Pembury water treatment works; Tunbridge Wells, Pembury, Frant and Eridge, Kent, England |
| Cause | Contamination of the treatment process after an incorrect/"bad" batch of coagulant chemicals was added at Pembury treatment works. [1] |
| Outcome | Partial restoration followed by recontamination and extended boil-notice; ongoing regulatory and political consequences for South East Water (calls for executive resignations; inquiries pending). [2] [3] |
| Formal investigation opened by the Drinking Water Inspectorate; parliamentary scrutiny and regulatory attention from DEFRA, Ofwat and EFRA committee. [4] [1] Schools, nurseries and many businesses closed temporarily; some vulnerable residents reported missed deliveries of emergency supplies. [2] [1] | |
In late November 2025, a major supply failure at the Pembury water treatment works (near Tunbridge Wells, Kent) left tens of thousands of customers of South East Water (SEW) without running water. The plant was shut down on the evening of 29 November after the company admitted that a "bad" or "chemical" batch of coagulant chemicals had contaminated the treatment process. [5] South East Water apologised and reported that approximately 24,000 homes across Tunbridge Wells, Pembury, Frant and Eridge experienced a loss of water supply or reduced water pressure at the peak of the outage. [6]
The disruption continued into the first week of December 2025: by 2 December, only partial supply had been restored, and when recharging the network triggered a "recurrence" of water-quality problems, SEW withdrew drinking water and issued a boil‑notice affecting all customers in the area. [7] SEW said it was slowly refilling the system, but warned that any returned water might appear discoloured and must be boiled before drinking. [8]
Bottled water distribution points were set up at several sites (including the local sports centre, cinema car park and town hall) and operated daily from early morning until late evening. [9] By 3 December the company reported that water had been restored to about 12,000 properties, but then recontamination forced all 24,000 back out of supply. [10] A statement on 4 December explained that the network could not yet produce drinking water meeting safety standards, so SEW was pumping water for flushing only (toilets/showers) and extending the boil‑notice for at least ten days. [11] The outage had severe effects on the community. Schools, nurseries and many businesses were forced to close due to the lack of clean water. [12] Residents described fetching rainwater to flush toilets [13] and washing at hotels.
Local authorities and charities provided bottled water, but some vulnerable people reportedly missed promised deliveries. [14] Affected families stocked up on bottled drinking water, and one Tunbridge Wells couple with seven-month-old twins described spending hundreds of pounds on takeaways and even paying £125 for a single hotel shower. [15] Many business owners blamed SEW. The owner of a 20-room hotel said he lost at least £30,000 and was forced to "mothball" the business. [16] A pub manager reported cancelling regular events and throwing away thousands of pounds of food; by 3 December the pub had been closed since the outage began, with at least £3,000 in losses so far. [17] In general, residents took to social media and news outlets to express frustration, and local councillors noted people queued for hours at water stations while care homes and medical facilities struggled without supplies.
Critics attacked SEW's handling of the crisis. Tunbridge Wells's Liberal Democrat MP Mike Martin said: "It's been appalling what the people of Tunbridge Wells have had to suffer over the last week. Not only have South East Water cut off their water supply, but they've utterly failed to manage the crisis and they've communicated in a contradictory and ineffective way. This has made the crisis worse rather than better." [18] He also noted that "the delivery to people on the priority list has been woefully inadequate". [19] Martin called for SEW's chief executive, David Hinton, to resign. [20]
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey visited Tunbridge Wells and called the outage an "emergency" and a "public health emergency". [21] During Prime Minister's Questions on 3 December, he asked the Prime Minister whether COBR (a national emergency committee) should be convened; Prime Minister Keir Starmer replied that the situation was "shocking" and that ministers were "bearing down" on SEW to restore supplies. [22]
Tunbridge Wells Borough Council declared a major incident on 2 December and opened extra public water points and toilets; it also warned of a "public health crisis" if the outage continued. [23] Government and regulators also intervened. The Drinking Water Inspectorate (DWI) announced a formal investigation into the Pembury works incident. [24] DEFRA officials said the disruption was "unacceptable," and by 3 December the Water Minister had summoned SEW's CEO for an urgent meeting. [25]
A letter from the chair of Parliament's Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (EFRA) Committee (dated 3 Dec) stressed that the Pembury works had "previously been identified as at significant risk" of failure, implying a lack of resilience in SEW's network. [26] The EFRA chair also criticised SEW's "substandard crisis management plan", pointing to delays in bottled-water deliveries and missed communication commitments. Ofwat's own records showed that SEW had been repeatedly criticised for outages over the prior five years, and in 2023 a statutory inquiry was opened into the company's service failures. [27]
The Pembury failure came amid wider concerns over infrastructure in the region. Notably, The Guardian reported that in 2024 the Pembury plant had been placed under a risk notice by the regulator due to contamination hazards. [28] That report also noted SEW's poor financial health – it needed a large cash injection in 2025 – and warned that negligence in maintenance could lead to legal action. [29] Similar "single points of failure" are known at other UK water works, but critics highlighted that SEW's outages appeared especially chronic. In 2022 Tunbridge Wells had already suffered a six-day outage over Christmas with similar causes, and residents complained that SEW had promised lessons would be learned. [30]