Key facts:
Location: Tye Hill Road, Polegate
Work: Replacing 3.3km of water pipes
Start date: Monday, 19 January, 2026
Duration: Three months
We’ll soon be replacing around 3.3 kilometres of water pipes in the Arlington and Polegate areas.
As you may already know, the water pipes in your area have burst six times in the last five years. This has meant low water pressure or no water for our customers.
We’re sorry this happened – it’s not acceptable. We’re always working to reduce the number of leaks and bursts we have. With this in mind, we’re going to be making some improvements to the water network in your community.
What's going to happen and when?
Work will start to replace 1.1 kilometres of pipe in Tye Hill Road on Monday, 19 January 2026, and will continue in private land after that.
Further work will take place in Caneheath and Wilbees Road at a later date, which is to be confirmed and subject to highways approval.
Our teams will work weekdays and some Saturday mornings. We may also work on some Sundays and we’ll work to complete this as quickly as we can to minimise disruption.
How will this affect you?
We’re sorry for the disruption this work is going to cause – we know it’s inconvenient. We’ll do our absolute best to keep it to a minimum.
Getting to and from your property
Customers will be able to get to and from their home or business during this work. Customers may have to wait occasionally if we’re working directly outside the entrance to their property just while our team makes the area safe for them to get by. The direction customers enter may not be their usual route or it may change as we move along the road.
Your water supply
We may need to turn the water off for a short time when we connect our new pipes to the existing network. We’ll let customers know if this is going to happen at least 48 hours beforehand, so you can plan ahead.
Tye Hill Road
We’ll be working along Tye Hill Road initially. This means we’ll need to close the road from the junction with Caneheath to the private land to the north, where we will continue our work.
We’ll work on short sections of the road at a time, so customers will still be able to get to and from your property wherever we’re working.
Diversion route
While we carry out this work in Tye Hill Road, a diversion route will be in place via Tye Hill Lane, Wilbees Road and Caneheath.
Further diversion routes will be required for the other sections of work along Caneheath and Wilbees Road and we’ll provide updates on these when possible.
The work we’ll be doing
Wherever we can, we’ll avoid digging trenches for laying pipes and instead drill holes to run the new pipes through the ground. This will mean less mess and fewer holes to fill after we’ve connected the new pipes. It could make things quicker as well.
Do you need extra support?
If any customer is likely to need any extra support during the work, they can join our Priority Services Register. We have several services to help if customers need it.
For example, if anyone is struggling financially, has an illness or disability or is looking after a child under five.
Find out more and sign up at southeastwater.co.uk/priorityservices
Do you want to know more?
If you’d like to know more or you have any questions before the work starts, please:
- Call our advisors on 0333 000 0002
- Email: customerservices@southeastwater.co.uk
Project updates
We’ll post regular updates on the project here as the work progresses.
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