Thousands of Whitstable residents have been left without water after the taps ran dry thanks to storage reservoirs for the area reaching 'a critical level' during the recent hot weather12:00, 28 May 2026Updated 12:08, 28 May 2026Thousands of people in Whitstable have been forced to queue in the heat for bottled water after the taps ran dry during the recent scorching weather.‌South East Water blamed the shortages on storage reservoirs for the area reaching “a critical level” in the heatwave.‌The water company said 8,000 customers are without supply as show traffic and queues of people lined up at a bottled water collection point at a Sainsbury’s near the Kent town today.‌The firm has urged customers to use water for essential purposes only such as drinking, washing and cooking, as supply issues continued from over the hot bank holiday weekend.Officials at Kent County Council have pledged to step up public scrutiny of water supply, quality and infrastructure in the county following a series of water outages in recent days, leaving residents “fed up”.South East Water incident manager Steve Benton said for Whitstable it is expected tap water supply will return later on Thursday, but may be “intermittent over the weekend”.‌He also confirmed that currently 7,000 customers are experiencing low pressure or intermittent supply in Tankerton, Ashford and surrounding areas, Ulcombe, Cranbrook, Coxheath and Headcorn.Another 7,000 customers are “at risk of experiencing some supply loss today”, he added.Mr Benton said: “Customers across Kent are still experiencing water supply issues due to extremely high demand during the very hot weather.‌“We are doing everything we can to get treated water into our storage reservoirs, but some customers will continue to have intermittent water supply until these levels have been restored.”According to the water company it pumped 628 million litres of water to customers on Wednesday, and over the weekend it treated and pumped more than 100 million litres more than the daily average for May.Mr Benton apologised to customers and said “we will continue to do all we can to prevent and resolve the issues”.‌Earlier this month South East Water’s chief executive David Hinton announced his plans to step down just a week after the group’s chairman Chris Train quit following a scathing report by MPs, who said they had “no confidence” in the company’s leadership.The scrutiny came after thousands of customers were left unable to access tap water, shower or flush their toilets during the outages between November and January.On Thursday, Kent County Council said it will set up a new “strategic partnership” to oversee water resilience in the county following the latest outages.‌The Kent Water Resilience Partnership will be chaired by council leader Linden Kemkaran and include water companies, local authorities, regulators and others to focus on planning, performance and show publicly how water issues are being addressed.Ms Kemkaran said: “People across Kent are fed up with being left without water or having their supply disrupted, sometimes for days at a time, and not getting clear answers about what’s gone wrong or when it will be fixed.“That’s simply not good enough.”‌The council boss said while the authority does not have direct power over water companies, “we do have a responsibility to stand up for Kent”.She added: “At the moment, responsibility is too fragmented and there is no single place where the whole system is being looked at.“This partnership intends to change that. It will shine a light on the issues affecting Kent and make sure there is clear, open scrutiny of how those responsible are responding.”Article continues belowThe move follows calls from the Green group at Kent County Council for the authority to declare a “Kent Water Supply Emergency” and create a plan to rectify the situation if water supply in the county is not fit for purpose.Green councillor Stuart Heaver, representing a Whitstable ward, said on Wednesday: “It is unbelievable that once again my residents are without water. This madness just gets worse.“We need to find out if our water supply is fit for purpose and resolve this.”