Water supplies to thousands of Kent homes are restored

Water supplies to thousands of homes in west Kent have returned to normal after engineers repaired a burst mains pipe.

Residents in Hildenborough and the Tonbridge area were without water or had very low pressure for more than 12 hours on Saturday.

South East Water said engineers worked on the pipe throughout the day and supplies started returning to normal from 2100 BST.

Bottles of water were handed out to vulnerable people.

A spokesman for South East Water said: "We would like to apologise to those customers affected today [Saturday] while we dealt with the emergency repair work, but also thank them for their patience.

"We had contractors and staff out delivering bottled water to our vulnerable customers and a supply of bottled water was available for people to pick up.

"We have now repaired the water main and we are beginning to slowly recharge the pipe and increase the water pressure."