People in Kent and Sussex asked to use water only for essentials after outages

South East Water has asked members of the public to use water only for essential purposes after demand surged on Monday to 100m litres more than average. After water outages for hundreds of homes across Kent and Sussex over the last three days during record temperatures , the company has asked customers to use water only for drinking, washing and cooking. On Monday 670m litres of drinking water was used across the company’s supply area – almost 100m litres more than the average for this time of the year. But the company has not imposed a temporary use ban, which would prohibit using a hosepipe to fill up paddling pools, water the garden or wash the car. Matthew Dean, the head of operations control at South East Water, said the extreme temperatures had caused demand for water to surge, while storage reservoirs were running low in several parts of Kent . “We had planned for this given the weather forecasts by increasing output at our water treatment works across our supply area and putting extra water into the network,” he said. “Our fleet of tankers has been working 24/7 putting additional water into the network in areas where demand has been extremely high over recent days. However, due to the nature of water supply networks, some customers on higher ground or at the far end of the network may have low pressure or supply interruptions, especially at peak use times. …