On 22nd September a resident contacted Croydon Council to inform them of seriously blocked drains along roads in Coulsdon.
They (of course) didn’t even receive the courtesy of an acknowledgement from Croydon’s failing Labour Council.
One month later our local area had very heavy rainfall, leading to some roads flooding and causing chaos on our roads.
Our local sewage system was over-capacity, and so could not drain the water away fast enough. Had these gullies been cleared, had this resident been listened to, could the chaos caused by this heavy rainfall have been avoided?
We live in Britain – heavy rainfall is not unexpected! Surely Croydon Council could do something about this?
The resident puts it very well:
‘I emailed the Council’s Highways Development last month advising of numerous blocked road drains in the area (not leaves but debris from road breakup which has set hard in the gullies). I've worked in the water industry for over 20 years both as a designer and project manager delivering flood relief construction projects and it has always been good practice to send teams out to inspect road gullies prior to the wetter winter months hitting. I appreciate leaves are an ongoing issue but the attached photos (and there are numerous other gullies I've seen just walking our dog in the area) clearly have not been maintained for some time.
If the Council turn a blind eye to all the blocked drains, especially on the higher levels then road runoff will obviously fall to the lower point, which in this case is Coulsdon.
I'm not saying this was the cause with the flooding the other night but if the surface water network runs in a different direction at certain points then the surface water runoff in the direction of Coulsdon would have been captured in these sewers which offer not only a drain route but also storage which may be make the difference between flooding or not in some storm events.’
A separate resident has told me that they too contacted Croydon Council in March reporting that about half of the drains on the following Coulsdon roads were severely blocked:
‘I sent the email below to the Highways Department on the 10th August but still no action has been done or reply received.
Weeds are now growing out of the drains. I'm sure you would agree with me that if the water could drain into the sewers through the drainage system it wouldn't all collect in the valley!’
- St Andrews Road
- Woodmansterne Road
- Clifton Road
- Winifred Road
- Lyndhurst Road
- Nutfield Road
- Brigstock Road
- Alexander Road
- Melrose Road
- Richmond Road
- Whitethorn Avenue, up from Winifred Road are completely blocked.
Report blocked drains in Coulsdon
If your road has blocked drains, please email me so we can lobby Croydon Council to clear them:
[email protected]
Please provide:
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The blocked drain location - with closest property number
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A picture of the blocked drain would be very helpful
