Forum Topic

Blocked drains

I have contacted the council 3 times in the last few years, asking for several blocked drains to be cleared in Disraeli Road (plants & grass grow in them!). Has anyone else struggled to have drains unblocked? Has anyone been successful? If so, please let me know the secret to your success.

Adam Tripp ● 1186d14 Comments

The drains themselves are the responsibility of Thames Water. The clearing of gulleys is the responsibility of the Council.Nick

Nicholas Evans ● 1177d

thanks Nick. In April John Locker told me that the council had recently bought a second machine for clearing drains, so I'm confused, is it the responsibility of TW or the council?

Adam Tripp ● 1177d

Adam, we had a lot of help from Fleur Anderson MP and eventually our sewer/drain was checked and cleaned. But it took months for TW to act, and even then we are still worried about the storm drain lifting if the volume of water is too great.Nick

Nicholas Evans ● 1177d

Paul.Chadwick@richmondandwandsworth.gov.uk

Adam Tripp ● 1178d

In April this year I spoke to Cllr. John Locker who kindly took up the challenge of having the drains cleared. 7 months later - no reply from Paul Chadwick despite John asking for the drains to be made a priority. At least the weeds look healthy!To: Chadwick, Paul Subject: Fw: Disraeli Road gullies Dear Mr Chadwick,Please can you arrange for Disraeli Road gullies to be cleaned. I was speaking to a resident on Saturday who pointed out that many had been blocked for some time and had weeds growing out of them. I share a photo of an example outside number 13. Of course, Disraeli Road has many houses with basement flats so could it be made a priority.

Adam Tripp ● 1178d

In our experience TW are pretty useless. The problem is that it appears most of their expertise has moved to the subcontractors they use. Unfortunately, it's the inexperienced pen pushers left at TWthat have to make decisions about what gets done, or,more likely, what doesn't get done. When we had an issue with the sewer main in East Putney we got no action from TW until my wife contacted the Consumer Council for Water and engaged with the CEO. That got us talking to a senior manager who had authority to sort things out before they got sanctioned by CCWater.https://www.ccwater.org.uk/

Michael Ixer ● 1178d

Also all the leaves have been falling from the trees that blocked the drains.

Barbara Stevens ● 1178d

Has anyone talked to Thames Water? If you have then you will have been on the same merry go round of meaningless and slow responses as we in Commondale experienced after the storm on July 12th 2020. This caused the storm drain cover to burst at the top of the road and together with road drains that hadn’t been cleared for years caused flooding in almost all the houses. They described this as a “once in a lifetime event”. They don’t seem to have understood the effect of climate change …Nick

Nicholas Evans ● 1178d

The other weekend when it fell down on the Sundays. We were coming back from somewhere. Putney High St near the Station was flooded. Also loads of other drains, you had to be careful not to splash anybody.

Barbara Stevens ● 1178d

That's because they are listed ;)

Ed Robinson ● 1178d

I blame the BID.

Matt Palmer ● 1178d

As I understand it because in London we have combined sewers (unlike in some other places) the sewers cannot take these sudden very heavy downpours all at once.  When the supersewer is complete it should be better.There are various ways to mitigate these increased sudden downpours which are attributed to climate change.  Several hours may be needed to allow the water to dissipate.  If the land is very dry and hard it is more likely to flash flood.  We need to slow down the flow of water towards the sewers.

Philippa Bond ● 1178d

Been trying to report repeatedly online this pm  blocked drain at end of Montserrat, maybe LBW website has crashed.. Very frustrating experience, resulted in failure! LBW didn't  act on a previous flooding report in same place adjacent to Copenhagen crossing  either.. is this the new administration incompetence.. And is it exacerbated by the enlarged  area of unnecessary paving... Either way, pedestrians are losers

Penelope Becker ● 1184d

https://www.london.gov.uk/programmes-and-strategies/environment-and-climate-change/climate-change/surface-water/sustainable-drainage-london

Philippa Bond ● 1186d