Thousands in Hastings could face Christmas with no water after mains pipe bursts

Thousands of households in Hastings could face a Christmas with no water after a mains pipe burst.

Southern Water has warned that households may begin losing water from the evening of Christmas Eve as the system is rapidly losing supply.

Emergency bottled water deliveries were being dispatched by the company to vulnerable households from Tuesday evening.

Customers have been told not to use more water than usual, and asked not to stockpile it as this could “make the situation worse”.

Southern Water said: “Depending on progress in completing the repair, we forecast that as a worst case, customers could start losing supply tomorrow evening (Wednesday 24 December).”

The burst mains pipe, in a woodland north of Hastings, was found on Tuesday morning and the company has been racing to fix it before supplies cut out over Christmas.

This is not the first time burst pipes have caused an outage in the area. Hastings residents were left without water for four days in May 2024 after a pipe, which was flagged for replacement in 2007 but never fixed, burst. Multiple pipes in the Hastings area have previously been listed by the company as “aged assets prone to failure”.

Helena Dollimore, the Labour MP for Hastings, Rye and the Villages, said: “I’m deeply frustrated that Hastings is once again paying the price for Southern Water’s failures. A burst pipe has left our town with a limited water supply and this means there could be an outage tomorrow. My immediate priority is protecting residents, particularly the most vulnerable, and supporting local businesses at this critical time.

“I’ve pressed Southern Water to act fast to open as many water stations as possible, deliver directly to those on the priority services list, and provide extra water to pubs, restaurants and hotels. I will be holding Southern Water to account and asking the questions that need to be asked, but right now my focus is on ensuring everyone has access to the water they need and limiting the impact of this.”

Dollimore has previously criticised the company for paying large dividends to its shareholders rather than investing in its crumbling infrastructure.

Southern Water recently came under fire after a failure at one of its treatment centres caused a spill of hundreds of millions of tiny plastic beads on Camber Sands and Hastings beaches.

Its managing director for water, Tim McMahon, said: “We are taking these measures as a precaution against a worst case scenario and impact on supply tomorrow evening. Our teams will fix the burst main as quickly as possible.

“While we work to protect supply to homes and businesses in Hastings, we would ask customers please not to use more water than usual, and not to stockpile mains water, as this will make the situation worse. Thank you for your understanding as we fix the issue.”