A garage worker has spoken of his frustration at having to turn away customers following the ongoing disruption caused by a five-day water outage.

Southern Water are still working to fix a leak which has left homes and businesses in Strood without a running source for days.

Problems began on Monday (December 23), when around 1,100 homes and businesses discovered they had little or no water.

It has since been reduced to a total of 11 homes and 24 businesses which are still affected five days later in Gun Lane and London Road.

Benjamin Penfold, an apprentice who works at the KwikFit Garage in Gun Lane, says the site is still without water.

He told KentOnline: “It's been a bit annoying. A lot of places like ours run with water reuse – you've got to wash your hands.

“We can't do it because we have bottles of water, it's not as easy as just using a tap.

“There’s a lot of oil you have to use and we have a special soap that takes up a lot of the grime and dirt.

“We can't really use it without hot water or even cold water. So it's a bit of a pain and you have to go home with dirty hands.”

The business has also had to turn away customers because it has been too busy and some processes are taking longer to fix without water.

Benjamin added: “We’ve had to run everything manually and got a bit more on our plate.

“Not everything can be done, including the normal bits that usually run in the background.

“Hopefully, they'll get it fixed quickly and it'll be all sorted.”

The shortage was caused by a burst water main, which is underground and has no signs on the surface – making it harder to locate.

Engineers have since found it after a deep “dig down” but say its repair job is a complex one which requires more time for it to be “fixed safely”.

Meanwhile, Michael Harman, who has lived in Gun Lane for 49 years, found his home heating system had failed due to the supply issues.

“It was over nearly a three-day period,” he said. “It was excruciating and horrible.

“Because of the loss of water pressure, my central heating had packed up.

“Even just to go to the loo, it meant going to my son's house, which fortunately is up the road.”

He added that the water came back on “just in time” for a lovely Christmas Day with his family.

And others have leapt to the defence of the water company and heaped praise on the engineers who spent much of Christmas and Boxing Day working on the leak instead of being with their families.

Sharon Scott, a resident on Frindsbury Road, said: “We were lucky and woke up on Christmas Day to our water restored, so as a thank you I made the men a cuppa.

“They were grateful and working so hard to get it sorted. Most of the houses were back on.

“There were three working and only two wanted drinks, but I think they were surprised to be asked.”

They were grateful and working so hard to get it sorted

She added: “The thought of having no water Christmas day was awful.

“You can make do without a bath for a while but we needed water to put in the slow cooker to cook our beef and gammon, you need water to boil your vegetables etc.

“Otherwise we would have just done what we could and managed.”

In an update just before 10am today, Southern Water said “Our teams worked through the night to dig down to the damaged pipe, however the repair is complex as there are electric cables close to the pipe.

“We're working with UKPN so we can arrange for the pipe to be fixed safely.

“We're continuing to deliver bottled water to affected customers and will be setting up tanks today to supply customers directly through the pipes so they can use their facilities and taps.

“Thank you for your ongoing patience and understanding.”