Second day of water outages hits 7,000 Tunbridge Wells homes as South East Water warns it may not survive

An instrument failure at Pembury Water Treatment Works cut reliable water to 7,000 Tunbridge Wells homes for a second day on 19 July 2026. South East Water issued a boil notice and set up bottled water stations. The same facility caused winter outages that drew a £30.5 million Ofwat penalty on 14 July. On 17 July, the firm warned of "material uncertainty" over its survival.