Water supply has returned after a burst water pipe left hundreds of people without water.

Residents and businesses in Tunbridge Wells awoke today to find they were receiving little to no water from their taps.

Multiple areas were affected and some schools, including Claremont primary in Banner Farm Rd, and St James’ Primary in Sandrock Road, were forced to close.

The issues was first reported at 2.44am today and was the result of burst water main in Halls Hole Road.

South East Water offered their apologies to customers earlier in the day and reassured those affected it was dealing with the issue as quickly as possible.

In the most recent update on its website, the water company said: “Our team on site has now completed the repair to the burst water main and you now see taps flowing as normal.

“If your water look brown in colour, please don’t worry as it is not harmful. This happens when small particles of iron within the mains are disturbed.

“Your water may also appear cloudy, or white. If you fill a glass and it clears from the bottom upwards then this means your water is just a little more aerated than usual.

“Simply run the water from your cold kitchen tap until the water is clear.

“Once again, we’re really sorry about the disruption.”

A water bottle station has been set up by the company at the Headcorn Aerodrome, near Ashford and will be open today (Wednesday) between 10am and 9pm.

The MP for Tunbridge Wells, Greg Clarke, took to Twitter to highlight how Tunbridge Wells is “without running water again, six months after the last outages.”

Earlier today he held a meeting with the water companies chief executive, the points of which he addressed in a video online.

He said: “The resilience of the network need to be improved so we don’t have this in the summer and winter.

“On that I have received a plan of improvements to the network, some changes of which have already been made.

“I want to get that independently assessed to see whether they are up to the job in hand.”

Over the Winter, thousands of residents were left without water for Christmas after a cold snap began freezing and bursting water mains.

It left many unable to wash themselves leading up to the holiday with some desperately resorting to melting snow to flush their toilet.

Six months on and though the weather may be different the issue is still the same.

Elsewhere villages such as Coxheath, Staplehurst, Binnenden and Bedenden have also experienced issues with water shortages.

In these areas, hot weather and lack of rainfall has created high demand causing pipes to crack and burst and liquid reserves to run dry.