Borehole Service Utilities Ltd drills water boreholes across East Sussex, from the chalk Downs behind Eastbourne and Seaford to the sandstone ridges of the High Weald around Crowborough and Wadhurst. The company designs, drills, equips and commissions private water supply boreholes for houses, farms, estates, vineyards, nurseries, sports grounds and commercial sites. Work also covers irrigation supplies, soakaway boreholes for surface water, solar-powered off-grid pumping, filtration and treatment, and the servicing and repair of boreholes drilled by other contractors. The company works from Surrey, and East Sussex sits inside its normal working area.
East Sussex holds a lot of property that sits well away from the mains. South East Water supplies most of the county and Southern Water covers the Lewes and Hastings areas, but the High Weald is a landscape of scattered farmsteads and long private lanes, and the cost of a new mains connection climbs with every metre of trench. Wealden District Council alone lists 46 private water supplies on its register, 29 of them serving a single household. A borehole replaces the water company bill with an asset on the property, though pumping electricity, sampling and maintenance remain real costs.
Water well boreholes for homes, farms and estates in East Sussex
A water well borehole is a drilled and cased shaft that draws water from an aquifer beneath the site and delivers it to the property through a submersible pump. In East Sussex that aquifer is normally the Chalk under the South Downs or one of the Wealden sandstones under the High Weald. Borehole Service Utilities Ltd drills, equips and commissions these supplies for single houses, groups of houses, farms, livery yards, country estates, campsites and commercial premises. Once it is commissioned, the borehole supplies the property whether or not there is a mains connection in the lane.
The reasons owners call are consistent. A mains quotation that depends on a long trench across someone else's land. A farm paying metered rates for stock water and wash-down. A grower whose peak demand lands in the driest weeks of the year. An estate that wants the supply under its own control. Wealden District Council alone lists 46 private water supplies on its register, 29 of them serving a single domestic household and the remaining 17 actively monitored, and that is one district out of five in the county.
A private supply changes the running costs rather than removing them. There is no water company bill for what is abstracted, but there is pumping electricity, filter media, UV lamps, sampling and servicing. Against that, the supply sits on the property and under the owner's control, and temporary use bans issued by a water company apply to that company's customers rather than to a property drawing from its own borehole. Whether the sums work depends on how much water the site actually uses through the year.
Water well boreholes in East Sussex are commonly drilled for:
- Houses and cottages with no mains connection, or a connection quoted at an unrealistic trench length
- Farms and smallholdings needing stock water, wash-down and building supply
- Country estates and large private houses wanting the supply under their own control
- Vineyards, nurseries and market gardens with concentrated seasonal demand
- Equestrian yards, livery and stabling on small acreages
- Campsites, holiday lets and rural businesses away from the network
- Sports grounds and golf courses irrigating turf through the summer
What is the geology under East Sussex, and what does it mean for a borehole?
East Sussex has two very different drilling landscapes. The southern belt is the Chalk of the South Downs, specifically the White Chalk Subgroup, which includes the Lewes Nodular, Seaford and Newhaven Chalk formations, all named from Sussex type localities. It is the county's only principal aquifer and the formation the public supply in that belt is drawn from. It lies under Eastbourne (BN20 to BN23), Willingdon and East Dean, Seaford (BN25), Newhaven (BN9), Alfriston and Polegate (BN26), Lewes (BN7), Firle and Glynde, and the Ditchling end of BN6.
Chalk groundwater here is hard to very hard calcium bicarbonate water, so limescale management is a normal requirement rather than a fault. The Chalk is also fissured and genuinely karstic. A 2021 NERC and BGS study of the coast between Seaford and Eastbourne identified over 50 cave and karst features, with more than 20 conduits per kilometre of cliff on favourable horizons. BGS puts transmissivity at an average of about 450 square metres a day, ranging from 16 to almost 10,000 depending on lithology, structure and karstification. Yield can change sharply over a short distance.
North and east of the scarp the target changes completely. The High Weald is underlain by the Hastings Subgroup of the Wealden Group, which holds two sandstone aquifers: the Tunbridge Wells Sand Formation above and the Ashdown Formation below, separated by the Wadhurst Clay Formation, which confines the Ashdown beneath it. BGS describes both aquifers as complex, probably multi-layered, and further complicated by major faulting, and says both are used privately and by water companies. That is the ground under Crowborough (TN6), Wadhurst and Ticehurst (TN5), Mayfield (TN20), Heathfield (TN21), Uckfield (TN22), Forest Row (RH18) and Hartfield (TN7).
The main formations under East Sussex, and what each one means when a rig is on site:
- Chalk Group, White Chalk Subgroup - the South Downs belt and the county's only principal aquifer. Hard water, fissured and locally karstic, so annular sealing and filtration matter.
- Upper Greensand and Gault Formation - a narrow band at the foot of the Downs scarp through Plumpton, Streat, Westmeston, Ringmer and Glynde. The Gault is a clay barrier; the Upper Greensand is thin here and often in continuity with the Chalk above.
- Lower Greensand Group - a thin, discontinuous scarp-foot outcrop, far less substantial than the Lower Greensand of Surrey and west Kent. Viability is a site-by-site question.
- Weald Clay Formation - the Low Weald belt through Chailey, Barcombe, Newick, Ringmer, Laughton, Hailsham, Herstmonceux and Ninfield. Unproductive ground: drilled through, never into.
- Tunbridge Wells Sand Formation - the upper High Weald sandstone aquifer. BGS gives its own thickness as typically 110 to 125 metres, occasionally reaching 150 metres.
- Wadhurst Clay Formation - the confining layer between the two Wealden sandstone aquifers, outcropping widely around Wadhurst, Ticehurst, Burwash (TN19), Robertsbridge (TN32) and Battle (TN33). Published thickness runs from about 30 metres near Lewes to over 70 metres near Tunbridge Wells.
- Ashdown Formation - the deeper Wealden sandstone aquifer, typically 180 to 215 metres thick, best exposed in an eight-kilometre cliff section between Hastings (TN35) and Pett Level.
- Purbeck Group - the oldest exposed rock in the county, in small areas in the core of the Weald anticline. Not a routine supply target in East Sussex.
- A note on postcodes: TN5 and TN31 also reach into Kent, RH18 and BN8 into West Sussex, and most of BN6 is West Sussex, so an outcode on its own does not settle which county a site is in.
What happens on site, from survey to commissioning
Drilling a water borehole follows a fixed sequence: desk study, site survey, notification, drilling, casing and screening, development, test pumping, pump installation, then commissioning and sampling. Borehole Service Utilities Ltd starts with the hydrogeology under the specific site rather than a county average, because in East Sussex the answer changes between the Downs and the Weald, and sometimes between one end of a farm and the other. BGS holds records of boreholes already drilled nearby, and those records are the best starting point available before anything goes in the ground.
The rig needs a working area and a route in. A great deal of High Weald property is reached by narrow, deeply sunken lanes, so access is checked in advance rather than on the morning of the job. Drilling produces arisings and water, so a settlement area is agreed on site beforehand. Steel casing is set through the unstable upper ground and grouted so the annulus is sealed against surface water. On fissured Chalk that seal is the most important part of the construction, because a poorly sealed borehole can take contamination straight down from the surface.
Once drilling is finished the borehole is developed to clear fines from the water-bearing horizon, then test pumped to establish what it will deliver and how the water level recovers. That test decides the pump, its setting depth and the size of any storage. A borehole on the Low Weald clay usually ends up deeper than one on the Downs, because the Weald Clay has to be drilled through rather than into. The pump, rising main, cabling, pressure vessel, controls and dry-run protection go in, then the system is chlorinated, flushed and sampled before handover.
A typical East Sussex water borehole project runs in this order:
- Desk study of the underlying formation and any nearby borehole records held by BGS
- Site visit to fix the drilling position, the access route, the rising main run and the plant room location
- Advance notification where the borehole is intended to reach more than 15 metres
- Drilling, with a journal kept of the strata passed through and the levels at which water is struck and rests
- Steel casing set and grouted so the annulus is sealed against surface ingress
- Development of the water-bearing horizon, then test pumping to establish yield and drawdown
- Submersible pump, rising main, pressure vessel, controls and dry-run protection installed
- Chlorination, flushing, a water sample and handover, with treatment sized from the sample result
Filtration, water treatment and borehole maintenance in East Sussex
Borehole water in East Sussex almost always needs some treatment, and what it needs is set by the formation it came from. Chalk water off the Downs is hard to very hard calcium bicarbonate water, so limescale reduction is a normal part of the system. Because the Chalk here is fissured and karstic, turbidity and bacteriological risk can rise sharply after heavy rainfall, which is why sediment filtration and UV disinfection are standard on Chalk boreholes. Where the catchment above the borehole is arable, nitrate can also be elevated.
Wealden sandstone water is a different problem. Water from the Tunbridge Wells Sand and Ashdown formations is softer and lower in dissolved minerals than Chalk water, but dissolved iron and manganese are a common and well-recognised feature of Wealden supplies, and pH often runs on the acidic side. Confined Ashdown water is normally low in oxygen, which is the condition that keeps iron and manganese in solution until they meet air, then stains baths, tanks and laundry orange or black. Aeration or oxidising filtration, pH correction and UV disinfection are the usual package.
A borehole is a piece of machinery and it needs servicing. Borehole Service Utilities Ltd services pumps and controls, replaces filter media and UV lamps, and investigates falling yield, pressure loss, air in the system and changes in water quality. A drop in output is often the equipment rather than the aquifer: a clogged screen, a worn pump, a failed non-return valve or a leaking rising main. Downhole CCTV separates those causes before anyone starts talking about drilling again, and older boreholes can frequently be cleaned and rehabilitated instead of replaced.
Common treatment and maintenance work on East Sussex boreholes:
- Sediment and particulate filtration, particularly after heavy rain on the Chalk
- UV disinfection as the standard bacteriological safeguard
- Iron and manganese removal on Wealden sandstone supplies
- pH correction where the water is acidic
- Limescale reduction on hard Chalk water
- Pump servicing, replacement, controls and dry-run fault finding
- Downhole CCTV survey, cleaning and rehabilitation of older boreholes
- Sampling support for council monitoring under the Private Water Supplies (England) Regulations 2016
Irrigation boreholes for gardens, sports grounds, farms and nurseries
An irrigation borehole supplies water for growing and playing surfaces without drawing on the mains. Borehole Service Utilities Ltd drills and equips irrigation supplies for gardens, sports pitches, golf courses, nurseries, vineyards and farms across East Sussex. Irrigation demand is seasonal and concentrated: the water is wanted in exactly the weeks when a metered supply costs most and is most likely to be restricted. Sizing an irrigation borehole is about peak daily volume and delivery pressure at the furthest sprinkler, not just about finding water.
The county's growing sector is real. Vineyards are now a serious East Sussex land use. Rathfinny, on the south-facing Downs slope just south of Alfriston (BN26), runs over 93 hectares of vines and around 385,000 plants on silty clay loam over chalk, and Ridgeview at Ditchling Common has been producing sparkling wine in Sussex for more than 25 years. Plumpton College near Lewes (BN7 3AE) works 10 hectares of vineyard producing around 40,000 bottles a year. Young vines need water to establish, and frost protection needs volume on demand.
Sports turf and livestock are the other side of it. Golf is concentrated across the county: East Sussex National at Little Horsted near Uckfield (TN22 5ES) has two championship courses and hosted the European Open in 1993 and 1994, and clubs run from Royal Ashdown Forest and Crowborough Beacon in the north to Dale Hill at Ticehurst, Cooden Beach at Bexhill, Seaford on the Downs and Rye Golf Club at Camber. Specialist nurseries count too, with Great Dixter at Northiam (TN31 6PH) dispatching plants weekly by courier. On the Pevensey Levels and the Rye Bay grazing marsh, watering stock on remote ditch-cut pasture is a daily problem.
Soakaway boreholes for surface water drainage on Wealden clay
A soakaway borehole is a deep drainage borehole that takes surface water down past impermeable ground to a formation that will accept it. It is the answer where a conventional shallow soakaway fails a percolation test, which on the Low Weald of East Sussex is common. The Weald Clay belt runs across the middle of the county through Chailey, Newick and Ringmer (BN8), Laughton, the Dicker, Hailsham and Herstmonceux (BN27), Ninfield and on towards Bexhill-on-Sea (TN39 and TN40). Natural England's description of the Low Weald records a great deal of surface water, with ponds and many meandering streams, as a direct result of the impervious clay.
The situations are familiar. A new house or extension with no sewer or watercourse to discharge to. A yard or car park that floods every winter. A roof drainage scheme that has failed its percolation test. A farm building where surface water simply sits on the surface. A borehole drilled through the clay to a permeable horizon beneath gives that water somewhere to go, in a fraction of the footprint a soakaway crate field would need. Site-specific percolation testing still governs the design of any individual scheme.
Deep soakaway boreholes sit inside the same notification regime as water boreholes. BGS guidance states that the duty to give notice of a borehole intended to reach more than 15 metres covers boreholes drilled for abstraction, trial, monitoring and observation, and expressly includes deep soakaway boreholes. People often assume a drainage borehole falls outside that. It does not. Nearby designations matter as well: the Pevensey Levels between Bexhill-on-Sea and Hailsham form a 3,603-hectare biological SSSI notified in 1990, and also a Ramsar site and Special Area of Conservation.
Off-grid water supply with solar-powered borehole pumps
A solar-powered borehole pump lets a property take water from a borehole with no mains electricity connection. Borehole Service Utilities Ltd installs solar-driven down-hole pumps for remote properties across East Sussex: the outlying field, the yard at the far end of the farm, the cottage a long way from the nearest supply point. Panels drive the pump through a controller, water is lifted into storage through the daylight hours, and the storage tank does the work a battery would otherwise have to do.
The High Weald is where this comes up most often. The High Weald National Landscape covers 1,461 square kilometres across Kent, Sussex and Surrey and is the fourth largest National Landscape in England and Wales. Its own body describes a dispersed settlement pattern of isolated farmsteads and hamlets on narrow, deeply sunken lanes, with 28 per cent woodland cover and 12,500 kilometres of hedgerows and field boundaries. Crowborough Beacon, at 242 metres, is its high point, and Ashdown Forest rises to 223 metres. Trenching a new electricity supply out to a remote trough or building is a significant cost in its own right.
Typical uses are livestock troughs on outlying pasture, irrigation for a paddock, plot or young planting, and full domestic supply to a house or holiday let with no mains power. Sizing is the whole job: daily demand, the depth the water has to be lifted from, the panel array, the storage volume and how many dull days the system has to ride out. Under-sizing the storage is the usual mistake, because a solar pump only moves water while there is light on the panels.
Do you need a licence to drill a borehole in East Sussex?
Most single-property boreholes in East Sussex do not need an abstraction licence, but any borehole deeper than 15 metres must be notified in advance. GOV.UK states that a full abstraction licence from the Environment Agency is needed for most types of water abstraction over 20 cubic metres a day. Abstraction of 20 cubic metres a day or less generally does not require one, and that is where most single households and many smallholdings sit. Exemptions have narrowed over the years, so the position should be checked for the specific site and use.
The notification duty comes from section 198 of the Water Resources Act 1991. Anyone sinking a well or borehole intended to reach more than fifty feet, about 15 metres, for the purpose of searching for or abstracting water must give notice before work begins to UK Research and Innovation, which took on the role from the Natural Environment Research Council on 1 April 2018. A journal must be kept of the strata passed through and the levels at which water is struck and rests. On completion or abandonment, a copy of that journal and the particulars of any flow test go to UKRI, and the records are held by the British Geological Survey. Not notifying is an offence.
Two further permissions come up. GOV.UK says that if you want to abstract groundwater you must check whether you need a consent to investigate a groundwater source from the Environment Agency before applying for a licence; it covers boreholes, wells, springs, quarries and mineral workings, and the application is form WR32. Separately, private water supplies are regulated by the district or borough council, which in this county means Wealden, Rother, Lewes, Hastings or Eastbourne, under the Private Water Supplies (England) Regulations 2016, not by the Environment Agency and not by the water company.
The permissions that come up on an East Sussex borehole:
- Abstraction licence - required from the Environment Agency for most abstraction over 20 cubic metres a day. Transfer, temporary and impounding licences also exist for particular situations.
- Consent to investigate a groundwater source - GOV.UK says to check whether this is needed before applying for a licence. Application is by form WR32.
- Section 198 notification - required before sinking any borehole intended to reach more than 15 metres, given to UKRI, with the drilling journal and flow test particulars sent on completion or abandonment.
- Deep soakaway boreholes - expressly included in that notification requirement by BGS guidance, even though they abstract nothing.
- Private Water Supplies (England) Regulations 2016 - risk assessment and monitoring carried out by the district or borough council, with more frequent monitoring for larger supplies and those serving commercial activities.
- Planning and landscape designations - the South Downs National Park, designated on 31 March 2010 and covering 1,627 square kilometres, takes in the downland belt, although its boundary excludes the built-up areas of Eastbourne, Seaford and Newhaven while Lewes and Ditchling sit inside it. Much of the north and east of the county lies in the High Weald National Landscape.
Borehole drilling by town and postcode in East Sussex
These are the 26 main towns and postcode districts Borehole Service Utilities Ltd covers in East Sussex. The surrounding villages and outlying farms in each of these districts are covered too, so it is worth ringing even if your own village is not named here.
- Lewes – BN7, BN8
- Uckfield – TN22
- Crowborough – TN6
- Heathfield – TN21
- Hailsham – BN27
- Battle – TN33
- Rye – TN31, TN36
- Bexhill-on-Sea – TN39, TN40
- Hastings – TN34, TN35, TN37, TN38
- Eastbourne – BN20, BN21, BN22, BN23
- Seaford – BN25
- Polegate – BN26
- Alfriston – BN26
- Wadhurst – TN5
- Ticehurst – TN5
- Mayfield – TN20
- Robertsbridge – TN32
- Burwash – TN19
- Herstmonceux – BN27
- Forest Row – RH18
- Hartfield – TN7
- Ringmer – BN8
- Newick – BN8
- Ditchling – BN6
- Northiam – TN31
- Newhaven – BN9
Borehole Questions from East Sussex Property Owners
Talk to a borehole contractor about your East Sussex site
Borehole Service Utilities Ltd works across East Sussex, from the Downs at Eastbourne, Seaford and Lewes to the High Weald around Crowborough, Heathfield and Battle, and east to Rye and the Rother valley. Call 01428 735013, or 07970 573840, to talk through the site: the formation underneath it, access for the rig, what the water is likely to need in treatment, and which permissions apply. Or email info@boreholeservice.co.uk with a postcode and a rough idea of daily demand, and you will get a straight answer on whether a borehole is worth doing there.