UPDATE: Southern Water continues to fix 18-hour water loss problem

At around 3pm yesterday afternoon, Southern Water said a reservoir pipe had burst, causing many homes in the TN34 and TN35 post code areas to lose most or all of their water pressure.

The issues continued through the evening, and in an updated statement, Southern Water said it had located the burst pipe in Layton Road and was working to fix it.

The last official statement was at 1.15am this morning. It said: “We continue to work on faults in the TN34 & TN35 postcode areas of Hastings which have resulted in some customers experiencing low pressure or loss of supply.

“Affected customers will start to see intermittent restoration of their supply over the next few hours whilst we are working on reintroducing the area to its normal operation, following repairs on two mains.”

It appears some customers have had their water restored, but Southern Water has not yet confirmed it has finished solving the problem, with the issue still being active on their online incident log as of 10am this morning.

Residents have reacted with confusion on social media about the incident, tweeting Southern Water to ask what is going on.

@NurseKezza tweeted four hours ago and said: “Please can someone contact us urgently, we were waiting for a call back all evening yesterday. We have 200 cats at our animal sanctuary and we have no access to water still! Please we need to know what’s happening!”

Yesterday evening Kate, @bookscouldtalk, said: “Any sign of water being delivered yet? Now been 4 hours since pipes emptied. House full of kids and none can use the toilet.”

Last night, Sarah Gisborne tweeted: “Do you know how long it will before water is back, am disabled and vulnerable, have been trying to get through to SW for 1 hour, have low water pressure, and no heating”

Also yesterday evening, Arb Paninken tweeted: “Disruption approaching 12 hours now so you have a duty to provide an alternative supply, for example, bottled water or tankers in the street (bowsers).”

At around 11.30am today, Southern Water said it had fixed the water pipe. Click here to read their statement.