hi i hope that some one can give us some advice, we have had an ongoing problem for eight years with highways. we have no front garden or space, so our property (front door) sits approx three feet from surface water drain. it has been repaired many time but the problems have never been resolved.ie when it rains and it does not have to be heavy rain. water collect before the drain, causing flooding on our side, it goes beyond the white line in the centre of the roas. as the water collects it causes it to be jetted by passing traffic onto our property, and i do not mean a small annount, i mean upto eight foot high. directly onto our house and door and windows .we cannot use our front door or side entrance due to the amount of water being disbersed.we have damp now from the continual drenching. we have videoed the event and gave to highways last october, still waiting for a reply. made an offical complaint, there leaflet says "we aim to respond in fifteen working days " well it has been over thirty now and still nothing. the director of highways contacted us at home , and said he would look into it. again nothing, so sorry to bore you ,but where do we go from here, and are we entitled to compansation? also we want to market our property but cannot until this is sorted out. many thanks for taking the time to read .and maybe offer advice,

your MP for starters!!

dx

But which MP? It will be another month before they know who their MP will be and s/he will probably be aware that they are assured of a job for 5 years and be busy settling in that they won't be bothered with such a small (to them) matter.

If the Director of Highways has contacted you then I would say that they are taking your complaint seriously as the director would not normally get involved with day to day highways issues, they would be handed to the highways manager. If you have his email address then i would email him and ask for an update. if you dont have his email it is easy to works out as they are usually as follows [email protected] as an example.

Your description of your property suggests that it open straight onto the public footway which are usually 1.5 - 1.8m wide, and have a kerb face of average 125mm. You say that you have a highways drain outside your property, and when it rains even a small amount that it blocks and creates a large area of water across the road to the centre line. If the council have jetted the gully and the problem is still occuring then I would expect that their is a broken pipe between the gully and the sewar. You should write to the director and demand that they investigate the matter and identify the cause of the problem. It is now the new financial year and your best chance of gettting the work undertaken before they commit funds to other projects. make them aware that you know it is the start of the financial year and they should be able to spend money on the repair (in my experience we are only talking £2000).

Also ask them what month do they undertake the annual jetting of the gulley, they should do it at least once a year.

thankyou for your reply, it has at least given us hope . now the highways director is involved, it is not the drain itself it is the area before the drain . it is at a lower level and therfore the surface water does not run into the drain.i tried to email him but it just kept being returned.

thankyou once again for your response, and i shall let you all know the outcome.

We had a similar problem with our properties and flooding to 8 properties.

The council, highways, water & enviroment kept passing the book i.e someone else's problem. After nearly been flooded several time more & on one occasion when I saw red I contacted our local newspaper who plastered it all over the local newspaper(we became quite famous in our arae for a reason we didn't want). Another person contacted our local councillor & our local MP.

After about 5yrs of fighting I have never seen our council/highways move so fast.

Go on shame them.

If the problem is only about levels, then it is a simple fix, it will take 20 mins for an engineer to take levels and establish the best solution whether that be lowering the gully or re surfacing a small area of road surface (or both), either way its a simple solution