New £50 million water treatment works opens near Maidstone to strengthen Kent's water supply

A new £50 million water treatment works has officially opened in Aylesford, with South East Water saying the facility will play a key role in improving the resilience of water supplies across Kent.

The new Butler Water Treatment Works is now capable of supplying up to 20 million litres of additional drinking water every day into the network, primarily benefiting customers in the Maidstone area. In the longer term, the company plans for the site to also support Ashford and surrounding communities once a new strategic pipeline has been completed.

South East Water says the investment is the first of several major infrastructure projects planned as part of its wider programme to strengthen water supplies across the county.

One of the more unusual aspects of the project is how the water source was secured. Following the closure of Aylesford Newsprint in 2015, South East Water acquired the site's water abstraction licence after several years of negotiations with the administrators and the Environment Agency. According to the company, transfers of this type are uncommon and have allowed a new source of drinking water to be developed for Kent.

Construction of the treatment works was completed earlier this year, with the site now fully operational and supplying drinking water to customers. The next stage of the project involves building a new strategic pipeline that will allow treated water from Aylesford to be transferred across other parts of Kent when required.

South East Water says the additional capacity will help reduce the risk of future supply interruptions and forms part of its wider £2.1 billion investment programme between 2025 and 2030, which includes upgrading infrastructure, reducing leakage and improving the resilience of the network.

Following the announcement, many residents questioned why a temporary hosepipe ban is still in force if the new treatment works is already producing more drinking water.

Responding to customers on social media, South East Water explained that the new facility increases the amount of water that can be treated, but the restrictions are linked to treated water stored in reservoirs and storage tanks. The company says these reserves were heavily depleted during recent periods of exceptionally high demand and need time to recover before restrictions can be safely lifted.

South East Water says it will continue monitoring storage levels and will remove the temporary hosepipe ban once it is confident supplies have recovered.

More information about the Butler Water Treatment Works is available on South East Water's website: South East Water - Butler Water Treatment Works