20,000 customers without water in Sussex after failure at Southern Water supply plant

Thousands of customers in Sussex were left with little or no water at the weekend after a failure at a water supply plant.

Southern Water said the outage followed unusually low levels of chlorine at its Hardham water supply works.

The company said 20,000 customers were affected in the Billingshurst area.

A bottled water station was set up at Billingshurst Football Club on Sunday, May 14.

Local fire crews were brought in to help with the dispersal of water bottles.

A fleet of 19 tankers supported hospitals and the areas most in need of supplies.

Southern Water first tweeted on Saturday evening, May 13, to say it was experiencing problems.

In a statement on Twitter, the company said: "Due to a failure at our Hardham Water Supply Works, customers who receive their water supply from our Upper Nash and Itchenfield reservoirs in the West Sussex area are experiencing no water or low water pressure."

In a statement the company apologised to customers and said it hoped to begin restoring supplies by Sunday evening, but warned it could take up to 36 hours to get back to normal.

The statement on the company's website said Horsham, Billinghurst, Broadbridge Heath, Pulborough, Codmore Hill, West Chiltington, Wisborough Green, Rudgwick, Loxwood, Barns Green and Slinfold had all had supplies disrupted.

The company said it had no choice but to shut down the site to ensure public safety.

"Our sites operate to the strictest standards for water quality and are designed to automatically shut down well in advance of any risk to our customers.

"The incident was caused by unusually low levels of chlorine being detected at our Hardham water supply works.

"Chlorine is an important part of our standard treatment processes used to ensure water quality meets the very high standards set. 

"Our teams are investigating what has caused the change in chlorine levels. We can confirm this has nothing to do with sewage."

Customers can find more information directly from Southern Water.