Several villages in Kent have been left without running water.

Residents in villages between Ashford and Maidstone - including Coxheath, Headcorn and Harrietsham - have been affected.

The outage is due to a technical failure at a nearby water treatment works.

An important part of the filtration system broke forcing the site to shut down.

South East Water engineers have now replaced the part but the back up clean water tanks emptied while this work was in progress.

Its website states the water shortage was reported at 11.53am today and while South East Water has yet to say when the issue is expected to be resolved, they have confirmed they are re-routing water from elsewhere in their network.

A statement on the company's website said: "We are very sorry to customers in Hucking and the surrounding area who have low tap water pressure or no water at all.

“A vital piece of equipment broke in the early hours of this morning at a nearby water treatment works.

“Although this has been fixed, our underground stores of treated water drained in the meantime as demand for water exceeded what we were able to supply.

“We are currently setting up bottled water stations and delivering to our most vulnerable customers.”

The water company is handing out bottled water in Mote Park, Maidstone and at Headcorn Aerodrome until 9pm tonight.

Several people commented in a local Facebook group asking if others in the surrounding area had similar issues.

One said: “Is anyone else having issues with water supply this morning around Hogbarn Lane area ?”

Another posted: “What with gas problems all we need now is a power cut LOL.”

Jim MacIntyre, Incident Manager at South East Water said: “We’re so sorry to just over 9,000 customers in Hucking, Harriestsham, Headcorn, Coxheath, Hollingbourne, Park Wood, Langley, Linton Park, Loose and Sutton Valence areas who may have low tap water pressure or no water at all.

“In the early hours of this morning, we were alerted to a fault at our nearby water treatment works which caused the site to shut down.

“The repair to the piece of machinery is now complete and water is again being treated and pumped to the clean water storage tanks with water levels rising slowly getting back to where we can fully restore supply to all affected areas.

“We are delivering bottled water to our most vulnerable customers and re-routing water around our vast network of underground pipes.

“Bottled water stations are open until 9pm at Mote Park Leisure Centre, Maidstone and Headcorn Aerodrome.

“While the clean water storage tanks are recovering we are asking people in these areas who still have a supply to only use this water for essential use for the rest of today."