New Water Outage Across Ore
PAUL MCLAUGHLIN
Some 300 households have been affected by new water outages across Ore. Local residents have been reporting erratic water supply and low pressure since mid-April, with many households left without water for hours at a time. There are complaints too, that when the supply does return the water is often brown in colour and needs to be left to run for some time until it clears.
Helena Dollimore MP meets with Ore constituent Jim Breeds
Residents have been left angry and frustrated at the lack of direct communication from Southern Water and report that its response to the outage has been woeful, with many saying they have been forced to buy their own bottled water.
Jim Breeds, who lives on Winchelsea Lane in Ore, first experienced problems with his water supply on 19 April. He reported having low water pressure and intermittent supply to Southern Water. The problems became more frequent, and the time taken to restore the supply grew longer.
Despite repeated calls, the water company failed to acknowledge the impact this was having on the family. They even refused to provide them with bottled water on the grounds that the supply was working – albeit intermittently. Jim contacted Helena Dollimore to seek her support. The local Labour MP immediately got in touch with Southern Water’s Chief Executive, Lawrence Gosden, regarding the ongoing problems and within hours a supply of bottled water was delivered to Jim’s home.
Ms Dollimore said Southern Water’s response to the outage “has not been good enough,” adding “after all the disruption our community has experienced at the hands of the privatised water company, this is unacceptable.” She says she has been actively pushing the company to restore the supply as a “matter of urgency” and has demanded they “adequately compensate all affected residents.” The MP added that a team from Southern Water had agreed to join with her to meet with affected residents on 4 June.
Jim Breeds was told by the engineers working on manhole covers in Winchelsea Lane and Churchill Avenue that the problem was the result of the old reservoir at Fairlight being “unfit for purpose” whilst the new reservoir could not cope with the increased demand. This has resulted in low water pressure in the system and the intermittent failure of supply. The engineers suggested this could take months to fix.
A spokesperson for Southern Water acknowledged that the problems had been caused by the repair to a storage reservoir and that the company was working hard to get this back up and running.
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