After five days without water, the 24,000 residents of Royal Tunbridge Wells in Kent this morning at last celebrated the return of service. SE Water have finally admitted that on Friday of last week an operative at its Pembury treatment plant inadvertently poured 19,000 litres of anti-freeze into the storage tanks. One employee, who wished to remain anonymous, was reported as telling a colleague that he added the fluid “in case the weather turns icy.”
Speaking from his 4,000 acre private Caribbean island of Piztakia, CEO David Hinton told Spoofflé how sorry he was for the disruption. “I am so very, very, very sorry – we are all are very, very sorry – that a few residents may have experienced a slight aqua hiatus over the past few days. Our excellent teams are working 24 hours a day, sometimes more, and straining every sinew in a laser-focussed effort to restore our service to its normal award-winning level.”
Water had started to flow again this morning although the company later issued a warning that it should not be used for drinking or cooking.
We asked Mr Hinton why the water flowing through residents’ taps was bright green but he said he couldn’t hear us clearly and the line crackled and went dead.
We understand that Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey is now pressing the government to send in the SAS to “get things sorted”.