Homes in Hampshire are without water
(Picture: PA Archive)Southern Water has asked its customers to use less water because of heavy rains and burst pipes, with thousands of homes experiencing restricted supply.
The utility company supplies water to Kent, Sussex, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight.
Homes across Hampshire were experiencing restricted supply because of heavy rains and burst pipes.
Some households across Kent and Sussex, supplied by South East Water, are also being left without water supply because of burst pipes.
In a message to customers in Hampshire, Southern Water said: “We’re really sorry for the ongoing disruption to water supply in parts of Hampshire. This is caused by a combination of factors.
“The recent heavy rain has caused the amount of sediment in the water we take from rivers to be higher than normal which means our water treatment works are having to work harder to treat the water before it’s supplied to customers.
“This combined with the increased number of leaks we’ve experienced since the recent ‘freeze/thaw’ event has meant demand for water is outstripping the ability to keep taps running.”
It asked customers not affected by outages to avoid using too much water to lessen demand on the network.
It comes as some customers with South East Water raised fears they would be left without running water for Christmas weekend.
The utility firm said Thursday about 3,500 customers in Kent and Sussex were still without water.
Its CEO, David Hinton, told BBC South East: “We’re very confident we can get customers on before Christmas, we think that’s really important.
“All the treatment works that were affected are all now back in operation."
The company said the rapid thaw of frozen pipes has increased the level of bursts and leaks on our underground network of pipes, causing storage reservoir levels to drop.
“It is impossible to predict which pipes will burst and where, and we’re working 24 hours a day to find and repair these bursts and leaks as quickly as possible,” it said.
In affected areas, bottled water stations have been opened for residents.
