Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells: how spa town ran dry

“Almost all” of the properties that have suffered a loss of water or low pressure in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, have seen their water restored, South East Water said yesterday.

Thousands of people were without water for six days in the royal town, and a health alert for families to boil water remains in place, while businesses are “counting the cost” of the crisis, said the BBC.

Strip-washes

The residents of the town, famed since the 1600s for its iron-rich spring, have a reputation for being “disgusted” thanks to the archetypal “Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells” – shorthand for an outraged, middle-class local signing a letter of complaint.

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Although he’s lived in Tunbridge Wells for 20 years, The Spectator’s Robert Taylor has “never met anyone” who’s disgusted – “until this week”. But they’re “all disgusted now”.

So would you be “if you couldn’t flush your loo for days on end, nor take a shower, nor wash your hands, nor drink a glass of water without schlepping to a communal bottle station” and even then having to wait in a “long queue”.

But community spirit has “kicked in, with friends helping elderly neighbours” and “relatively unscathed” homes “offering bathroom facilities to friends”. Not having clean water puts things “in perspective”, and “everything else, from taxes to trans rights and Trump, appear monumentally insignificant”.

Some have “resorted to a strip-wash” or “resigned themselves to the reality of giving up on getting clean entirely”, said The Telegraph’s Abigail Buchanan, and when she visited, the “most popular attraction in town” was a “block of (slightly smelly) temporary toilets”.

Schools, businesses, libraries, community centres and sports centres have closed, so although the Christmas lights spell out “Joy to the Wells”, someone walking past observed that “it’s not very joyful at the moment, is it”?

Coagulant chemicals

The Pembury Water Treatment Works was closed on Saturday 29 November after a “chemical issue”, said South East Water. This caused a complete loss of water or low pressure in up to 24,000 homes for five days.

The local MP, Mike Martin, said the issue was caused by a “bad batch of coagulant chemicals”, which meant water was not being pumped into storage tanks, resulting in low levels.

The water company aimed to fix the issue by 6pm on Tuesday, but later retracted that and the following day it said the water-quality issues were continuing and issued a “boil water notice” for the affected homes, saying this would be in place “until further notice”.

The company said it will address compensation for affected customers automatically once the incident is fully resolved, but the price could be high because Martin is already demanding “Covid-style” compensation of £18.5 million for businesses affected by the crisis.