South East Water shortage impacting education of pupils in Kent, say headteachers
ITV Meridian's Sarah Saunders reports from Tunbridge Wells, Kent
The headteacher of a Kent primary school says the loss of water supplies is now impacting children's education.
There are currently 7500 homes without any water across the county, and the head of Claremont Primary School in Tunbridge Wells says the issue means they aren't able to deliver appropriate learning, leaving pupils at a disadvantage.
The school were promised a water tanker on Wednesday but it never arrived, and on Thursday (15 January) they've had to close the school.
With the outage back in December and this ongoing situation the school has been closed for 6 full days and 3 part days.
Speaking about the impact on pupils and the school community, Head Teacher, Candi Roberts said: "It is impacting their daily lives!
"The instability and repeated changes to information from SEW has created substantial uncertainty for everyone.
"This disruption has resulted in major inconvenience with work and unexpected expense for some parents, many of whom have been forced to arrange alternative childcare, work travel etc at short notice or take unpaid leave from work.
"Our wraparound care provider and school meals provider will also have experienced financial losses as a direct consequence of cancellations and the lack of reliable guidance.
"Of course it has been stressful for school leaders.
"Many Headteachers and their Senior Leadership Teams across the area have been required to work much longer hours to respond to updates, manage risk, and communicate changes to families and staff.
"This has been highly stressful and unsustainable.
"It isn’t acceptable!"
Candi Roberts is not the only Head Teacher in Kent who is desperate for answers.
Hannah Knowles the Principal of the Skinners' Kent Academy says a coherent solution is urgently needed.
"We've had problems historically, two or three years ago - we were also shut because the water supply went down.
"We need an actual plan that is communicated clearly.
"If I ran this place like South East Water is currently being run, I don't think I'd have my job very much longer."
Hannah Knowles, Principal, The Skinner's Kent Academy
She said: "It's not just staff and pupils who are suffering . Many parents have been hit hard financially. Many have had to take unpaid leave or pay for childcare for 8 hours a day and it's not sustainable."
In the most recent statement, South East Water's Incident Manager, Matthew Dean, said: "Water supplies have now been restored to the 16,500 properties in East Grinstead, with supplies returned to the majority of those affected yesterday (Wednesday, 14 January) and to the remaining 1,000 properties overnight into today (Thursday).
"The 6,500 properties in Tunbridge Wells on the boosted system currently remain without water after the levels in the area’s drinking water storage tank dropped below the level the boosters can run.
"As of 5:30pm last night, we have implemented a new recovery plan for Tunbridge Wells, which involves keeping local booster pumps switched off today. Our aim is that customers wake up to a consistent water supply by tomorrow morning (Friday).
"Despite our best efforts, the local drinking water storage tanks have not refilled at the speed required. To resolve this, we must extend the outage to allow the storage tanks to recover fully.
"We have a separate ongoing issue in the south Tonbridge and Bidborough area of Kent, where around 1,000 properties in the Bidborough area will be experiencing intermittent supply, low pressure or no water this morning.
"This was initially affecting around 2,000 properties, but water supplies have been returned to around half of those affected and we are working hard to restore supplies to those still impacted.
"Water supplies have been restored to around 2,000 properties in the Loose and Coxheath areas this morning, after an issue impacted supplies in this part of Kent last night, with storage levels in the area remaining very low.
"In total, around 7,500 properties across Kent are currently without water, and we are very sorry to all our customers who have been and continue to be affected. We know and understand how difficult going without water for such a long period of time is and how difficult it makes everyday life.
"We are continuing to use 26 tankers to pump water directly into our network to increase the amount of water available in the affected areas and our leak repair teams are working around the clock to fix the leaks and bursts across Kent and Sussex, with extra resources available to help carry out repairs.
"Our customer care team is delivering bottled water to the customers on our Priority Services Register who are most in need. We have completed more than 25,000 deliveries to customers on our register in the affected areas over the last nine days.
"We are also supporting hospitals with tankers and providing bottled water for care homes, schools, medical care providers and to support livestock.
"Our bottled water stations are open again this morning (Thursday) at the following locations:
East Grinstead Sports Club, Saint Hill Road, East Grinstead, RH19 4JU
Tunbridge Wells Rugby Football Club, St. Marks Recreation Ground, Tunbridge Wells TN2 5LS
Odeon Cinema, Knights Way, Tunbridge Wells TN2 3UW
Mote Park Leisure Centre, Mote Park, Maidstone, ME15 7RN
Sovereign Way Mid Car Park, Tonbridge, TN9 1RL
"Customers can keep up to date with live issues via our website and using our interactive map.
"Once again, we’re sorry to any customers affected by these ongoing supply issues."
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