Homes and businesses across eight villages are expected to be without drinking water overnight after a power cut affected a nearby water treatment plant.

Goudhurst, Wadhurst, Lamberhurst, Matfield, Kilndown, Hawkhurst, Sandhurst, Northiam and surrounding areas near Tunbridge Wells have been experiencing low pressure or no water since around 10am yesterday.

A power cut on Friday caused multiple failures at a water treatment works which resulted in the site shutting down.

Technicians have been on-site at the South East Water treatment plant since the issue arose.

Water stations have been set up in three locations with two being set up in The Fowlers Car Park in Rye Road, Hawkhurst and the other at the Dale Hill Hotel and Golf Club in Wadhurst.

As of 12.45pm another station was opened at Northiam Village Hall in Rye.

Customers can also freely register for SEW's Priority Service which is aimed to help vulnerable people get much needed help and support.

A spokesman for South East Water said: "Thank you for your ongoing patience as our technicians work to restore supplies after a power cut caused major failures at one of our water treatment works this weekend."

One woman said: "It's like being in a third world country. You can't flush the toilet and when you have people living with you it's not the nicest thing.

"I have been filling up buckets from my pond and then flushing with it and have now run out of water in the kettle now so have just had to go out of my way to get a coffee."

Head of Operations at South East Water Nick Bell said: "We experienced some power failure at one of our critical treatment works, a very complex site with multiple failures that we have had to work and repair.

"Obviously with no water going to the reservoir the supplies have actually drained down into supply and it means the reservoir is now empty.

"We are here today at this water station giving out bottles to customers to make sure they have some water for their use at home.

"The teams are working round the clock behind the scenes to repair and replace the water supply to our customers' homes.

"For the site we are talking about, it's a very complex site and one of our many complex sites so there's lots of different stages where we actually treat and polish the water so each one of these stages comes with its own issues and its that that is taking the longer time than we would normally take to get the water into supply."

South East Water have now said they expect the network to refill overnight and hope most customers will be back in supply by tomorrow morning.

In an update, a spokesman said: "We are continuing to work to restore tap water supplies but this will take some time.

"Our bottled water stations will remain open for collections until 9pm tonight.

"We are very sorry to our customers affected and know it has been very difficult to be without tap water for this extended time."