Southern Water Emergency Control Centre
Medway Area

During the 1980’s three emergency control centre’s were built for southern water, one in Chatham was built into a disused covered reservoir. It was never fitted out or used.

As you approach the bunker two ventilation towers are visible on top of the earth mound covering the bunker, to the north is the main entrance, which is recessed and to the south is a manhole cover which gives access to the emergency exit.

A wooden door that leads to a short flight of stairs is the main access to the bunker, at the bottom of the stairs is a concrete and steel blast door. This door leads into the decontamination room that has a shower in a corner, there is a blast door to the left that leads to the standby generator room. In this room are the generator, fuel tank and a small room accessed by a small blast door that holds the filters that still remain in place.

Back in the decontamination room there is another concrete and steel blast door, this leads into the airlock. Through the airlock is the ventilation plant room, this has another small door leading to the one of the ventilation shafts that still has filters in place.

Between the ventilation plant room and the airlock is a corridor, two doors to the left lead to a store room and the dormitory which has 9 lights on the wall, these lights would be above each bed and all have pull strings attached. To the right of the corridor is a further two rooms, one leads to the toilets, the chemical toilets are still in place as are the soap dispensers. The second door leads to the kitchen area, in here two water tanks, a stainless steel sink, soap dispensers and cupboards can be found.

At the end of the corridor is the control room, here you can see the markings on the floor where the faraday cage was. There is a cupboard and remains of a sofa and a small blast door in this room. The blast door leads to the emergency escape shaft where there should have been a ladder. The ladder was never added.

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