I'm about to join the great unwashed

[thecaretaker]

Yay, it's coming out the taps like a rocket. I've never had such good water pressure. I can have a bath at last....

[thecaretaker]

I find this amazing when they say it is the biggest bottled water operations ever handled by Southern Water and... We're also dealing with a small burst in the Fairlight as a result of restoring supply.

And I cannot understand why Southern Water claim reservoirs have emptied and need to replenish due to the leak. Surely we would have seen flooding on an epic scale if Darwell Reservoir which is 156 acres and is over a mile long had leaked into the woods at the original burst pipe site. The pipe was installed in 1980, so it is not that old. The photos didn't show any more than a little pond (see earlier photo).

"Peak demand is causing low pressure problems due to the geography of the area and we therefore expect customers to experience intermittent supplies as we build up reservoir levels and increase water pressure. We're also dealing with a small burst in the Fairlight area as a result of restoring supply, which we have a team working on right now. During peak demand times, customers are likely to still experience fluctuations in pressure. Understandably, customers will be using more water than usual as well and we're working hard to manage the demand.

As areas are being brought back into supply, Southern Water continues to deploy its entire fleet of tankers to support those areas still without water.

Supplies have been assured to enable all schools and colleges in the area to open as normal today, and this arrangement is currently on track.

Over 1 million litres of bottled water were delivered over the last four days, making this incident one of the biggest for bottled water operations ever handled by Southern Water. Around 400 employees of the company have been involved in managing the incident since Thursday night, as well as contractor partners."