2025 Tunbridge Wells water crisis

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. When recharging, the network triggered a "recurrence” of water-quality problems, SEW withdrew drinking water and issued a boil‑notice to 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. These sites 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 recontamination forced all 24,000 back out of supply.^[10] A statement on 4 December explained that the water supply network could not produce drinking water that met safety standards, so SEW was only pumping water for flushing toilets and showering. They also extended the boil‑notice to 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 to those in need, but some vulnerable people reportedly did not receive promised deliveries of key supplies.^[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 shower in a hotel.^[15] Many business owners blamed SEW for the crisis. 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 having to cancel regular events and throw away thousands of pounds worth of food; by 3 December the pub had been closed since the outage began and had suffered more than £3,000 in losses.^[17] Residents took to social media and news outlets to express their frustration, and local councillors noted that 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]

Following December 3rd, 2025, SEW issued a formal boil water notice for all 24,000 affected customers. On the evening of December 3rd, the company announced it could not produce drinking water meeting safety standards and made the decision to pump non-drinking water into the network for flushing purposes only. The company initially stated the boil notice would remain in effect for at least ten days.^[28]

By 4 December, water supply had been partially restored to 23,000 properties, though the boil-water notice remained in place. South East Water announced that compensation would be calculated and automatically paid to customers, with households receiving approximately two years' worth of water bills for the worst-affected properties.^[29]

The boil-water notice was lifted on 12 December 2025, one day earlier than anticipated. South East Water's water supply director Douglas Whitfield confirmed that tap water in Tunbridge Wells was safe to drink following modifications to the treatment process, flushing of the network, and collection of water samples. The Drinking Water Inspectorate attributed the initial failure to a disinfection problem at Pembury Water Treatment Works. Before lifting the notice, investigations revealed that the Drinking Water Inspectorate had issued a significant risk warning in 2024 regarding the Pembury treatment works, indicating there was potential danger to human health or unwholesome water supply. Following the lifting of the boil notice, the Inspectorate issued an enforcement notice on 14 December that required South East Water to complete the installation and commissioning of a microfiltration stage at Pembury Works by December 17th, 2025.^[30]

Chief Executive David Hinton made his first public appearance on 18 December 2025. This was 20 days after the crisis began. He refused calls to resign. Hinton attributed the crisis partly to climate change, stating that record-breaking summer temperatures and lack of rainfall had altered the chemical composition of spring water feeding the Pembury treatment works, requiring different chemical treatment processes. He acknowledged that the company needed to test five variations of chemicals before finding one that worked.^[31]

On 2 January, 2026, SEW announced additional compensation schemes for affected businesses. They established a separate fund beyond statutory compensation levels with a total compensation package of £2.5 million. Household customers received compensation by 19 December, while small businesses received compensation worth three to four times their annual water bills.^[32]

Between 6 January and 17 January, 2026, South East Water experienced additional supply failures affecting 6,500 to 30,000 customers across Kent and Sussex. These outages were attributed to burst water pipes caused by freeze-thaw conditions following Storm Goretti.^[33]

In response to the cascade of failures, multiple regulatory investigations were opened. The Drinking Water Inspectorate launched investigations into the incident on 4 December, and expanded its investigation to include the January 2026 outages on 13 January, 2026. Ofwat opened its own investigation on 15 January, 2026, assessing whether South East Water breached its customer-focused licence condition. This marked the regulator's first scrutiny of a potential breach of the newly introduced condition, with potential enforcement action and fines up to 10% of company turnover.^[34]

Chief Executive David Hinton was called before the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (EFRA) Committee on January 6th, 2026, where he apologized to customers but stated he would not resign. During questioning, he admitted the company "did not perform as it should" and rated his company's response as "eight out of ten in terms of response, six out of ten in terms of communications, and six out of ten in terms of the actual prevention of the event". The committee explored issues including planning, resilience, capacity of infrastructure, communications with the public, and leadership.^[35]

On January 12, 2026, Prime Minister Keir Starmer described the situation as "totally unacceptable" in Parliament. On January 19th, 2026, Environment Secretary Emma Reynolds stated that water executives who are underperforming should not receive bonuses, specifically noting that "South East Water is the worst performer". She noted that Hinton had received a £115,000 bonus in addition to his £400,000 salary, with indications that his bonus could more than double in the following year.^[36]

On January 22, 2026, CEO David Hinton refused to attend a Tunbridge Wells Borough Council scrutiny committee meeting, stating the meeting was "happening too soon" for him to provide adequate answers.^[37]