Dozens of St Leonards seafront flats '˜without water'

Countless residents have no water supply in Marine Court as its pumps could not handle the lower pressure.

Plumbers are working to fix the problem but Lisa Cahalane, who lives on the 12th floor, had to stay in a nearby hotel last night (Thursday, March 9).

“I’m quite annoyed for the older people in the building, as I can move around but there are many people who can’t,” she said.

“I stayed in the Royal Victoria [hotel] as I can’t cook, wash, use the toilet or anything. I had a slow trickle of water in my kitchen sink but a lot of people are reliant on carers.”

Southern Water said it dropped the pressure to save money across St Leonards but Marine Court’s pumps failed because of it.

“We are constantly working to ensure our region is as water efficient as possible and have recently been working in St Leonards,” a spokesmans said.

“Water pressure in this area was higher than normal, and so we reduced it to match other towns and cities in the region.

“While carrying out this work it highlighted an issue with Marine Court’s private pumps which, as a result of the reduced pressure, caused residents to lose supply.

“As this is connected to their building’s private pumps, a plumber was called and is currently working to restore water to all customers.”

Marine Court residents suffered a major leak in the hot water pipe last week which left dozens of residents without water and affected businesses.

Ms Cahalane believes Southern Water should have fixed the problem instead of getting the building’s owners to call a plumber as it was its fault the residents have to suffer.

“They [Southern Water] been so unhelpful and again, most people in that building are not able to make complaints,” she said.

“We had that problem last week which was unfortunate and we’ve had several problems in that building.

“But there are 168 flats in that building and to think it’s okay to not supply water, it’s not on.”

Major leak at Marine Court seafront block of flats

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