Hastings left without water after pipe bursts on ‘biggest’ weekend for business

A small business owner in Hastings has told i he is set to miss out on vital income after a pipe operated by Southern Water burst leaving thousands without running water.

Like many cafes, bars and restaurants in Hastings this weekend, The Fountain Pub on Queens Road has not been able to open without a functioning toilet or running water.

An estimated 31,000 properties in parts of Hastings and St Leonards were left without water by Friday after Southern Water said a main had burst around the Darwell Reservoir on Thursday.

Southern Water said the outage was “likely to continue into the weekend” with leaving many queuing for bottled water at distribution centres, and businesses unable to open this weekend.

“I am absolutely gutted – we are stuffed,” the pub’s owner, Jamie Kingham, 32, told i.

“This was the big weekend,” he said, “The weekend that was supposed to help us pay the rent, pay bills after going through a really crap period.”

As well as it being a bank holiday, Mr Kingham said the seaside town of Hastings was expecting “tens of thousands to come down” for the May Day Bike Run and Jack in the Green – an annual four-day festival dating back to the 1700s.

Five schools, three colleges a leisure centre and a theatre in the area have also been forced to close.

Helena Dollimore, the Labour MP candidate for Hastings and Rye, warned how some businesses were potentially set to lose “hundreds of thousands of pounds” because of the disruption.

She said businesses are “already struggling” after a cost of living crisis and a long period of wet weather.

“Cafe, pubs, hotels, they all rely on this weekend to make money for the rent for the rest of the year,” she said.

“Southern Water is a disgrace,” the local politician said, adding: “It needs to get the water back on and look at compensation for the business affected.”

As well as small businesses, Ms Dollimore said she was concerned about vulnerable groups, including elderly people, “who were promised water deliveries” from Southern Water but were “not getting any”.

East Sussex County Councillor Godfrey Daniel agreed Southern Water’s reputation “couldn’t be much lower”.

“[This is] the state of our country, where you can’t turn on the tap and expect to see water,” he told PA news agency. 

Mr Daniel added: “One hotel is using seawater to flush the toilets, bottled water will only go so far in that respect.”

Read Next

The utility company said on Saturday it was “still working hard to deliver to more than 6,000 customers”.

“We know that some customers are still waiting on deliveries,” it added. “We’re doing everything we can to speed this up and resolve this issue.

Southern Water has also set up four disruption centres outside the city centre from where affected residents can pick up bottles of water – some of which Ms Dollimore said are already beginning to close.

One esident is retired teacher Mark Pierce, 55, who lives in Hastings town centre but does not have care, has been left without running water since Thursday night.

“My situation is that I have no transport and I live on the top floor of a flat, well away from any of the distribution centres I know are open,” he told i.

Thanks to a “mercy drop” by a friend, Mr Pierce said he now has a few litres of water to last him the rest of the weekend.

He fears the lack of trade over the bank holiday will “cripple the town”.

Meanwhile, Mr Pierce expects Southern Water bosses to “still get their bonuses at the end of the year, as usual”.

Southern Water has been contacted for a response.

The utility company has previously said: “We are very sorry that our customers in St Leonards-on-Sea and parts of Hastings are experiencing loss of water. This is likely to continue into the weekend.”

It said engineers were “making good progress in removing the broken pipe and replacing it with a new length of pipework”.

Southern Water said in an update on Saturday morning: “Our teams worked through the night to remove the broken pipe and replace it with a new length of pipework.

“We are making good progress on the repair.

“When the repair work is completed, we will then recharge the network and restart our water supply works.”

The site is located in isolated woodland at Keepers Wood near the A21, making it a “difficult” location, according to company director Tim McMahon, who said Southern Water have had to fell 50 trees in order to get to the burst.

“This is by far the most difficult location I’ve ever seen,” he told BBC Radio Sussex.