Major incident status lifted
The Council has removed its Major Incident response to the recent water outage in Tunbridge Wells following the news on Friday 12 December 2025 that South East Water (SEW) had lifted the boil water notice for the affected area.
Commenting, Council Leader Ben Chapelard said:
I am so pleased people do not have to face another weekend of disruption. This has been an incredibly difficult time for residents and nothing short of a catastrophe for businesses, yet despite that the community response to this crisis has been amazing. My hope now is that businesses can recover.
We now need to see a full inquiry and establish the facts of what led to this very difficult situation and we will continue to put pressure on South East Water to ensure they have robust plans in place to ensure this cannot happen again.
Information for residents and businesses about what they should do now
Residents and businesses who have any questions about what steps, if any, they need to take regarding their water supply will find information on SEW’s website.
Next steps
Although the Major Incident status is no longer in place we will continue to meet with partners to ensure there are no outstanding or consequential issues. We have set up a group to look at supporting businesses and manage the impact of the disruption, including seeking adequate compensation from SEW. We will participate actively in any reviews of the incident and will undertake our own internal review of lessons learnt.
Invitation to provide comments to the Drinking Water Inspectorate
Residents and businesses may wish to be aware that the Drinking Water Inspectorate (DWI) has commenced a full investigation into the incident, which will include SEW’s actions in the lead up to, during and after the event. This investigation will also include a review of the company’s communications with consumers to protect public health.
The DWI may wish to contact people as part of their investigation, there is a form on their website for anyone to complete if they are happy to be contacted.
Calling a Major Incident
The Major Incident was called by both Tunbridge Wells Borough Council and Kent County Council in line with the Kent Resilience Forum’s Water Supply Disruption Plan. It meant the Council and our multi-agency partners were able to follow a tried and tested process of command and control to closely monitor the incident. While the Council could not direct SEW’s operations we and our partners were able to question SEW’s approach to the outage, have full sight of the operational situation and provide strategic leadership. This allowed us to be confident that sufficient resources were in place to support vulnerable members of the community.
