An MP is calling for compensation for thousands of residents who were left without water.
People living in Eastbourne and Polegate were impacted by a burst pipe on Wednesday, March 5.
Lancing Way and Wannock Road were closed as South East Water began repair works.
On Friday South East Water announced the “network was returning to normal” with water supply restored to customers. But the two roads were still closed due to “significant damage”.
MP for Eastbourne Josh Babarinde has spoken out on the incident, calling for residents to receive compensation for the disruption.
“Thousands of residents were without running water at home.
“Disruption also included closures at St Catherine’s College and Willingdon Community School, both attended by hundreds of pupils in Eastbourne.
“Parents, guardians and carers were forced to take time off work unexpectedly as a result; children missed out on lessons as originally planned as many of their GCSEs are approaching; and some businesses were forced to close during this period, with their takings being hit.
“Given how disruptive this outage has been, I'm urging South East Water to provide compensation to affected residents, businesses and institutions without delay.
“It is the least that could be done, especially in light of surging water bills that we pay.
“I’ll keep pushing and will keep you updated on the response.”
"All customers will have their water supplies back, because of this we will not be opening the bottled water stations.
“Following the repair work, some customers may experience cloudy or discoloured water. The cloudiness is due to air in the water and will clear if left to stand.
"Discolouration can be resolved by running the kitchen tap for a few minutes until the water runs clear.
“The road has sustained significant damage due to the burst and will be closed while we repair the road. We are working to reopen the road as quickly as possible.
“We would like to apologise once again to our customers for the inconvenience this has caused and thank them for their patience.”
South East Water’s incident manager, Matthew Dean said: “We are passionate about providing the best possible service to the communities we supply. This event has proved to be complex and we apologise once again for the inconvenience caused to all our customers and local residents.
“Now the water network is stable, we will analyse what happened to understand exactly which customers were impacted and for how long.
“Our customers do not need to do anything, as soon as our analysis of what happened is complete we will then assess if compensation is eligible in accordance with our Guaranteed Standards of Service.”
