Upton Close Residents Fed Up With Flooding Due to Blocked Drains
Residents in Upton Close are fed up with their road flooding after heavy rainfall due to blocked drains.
John Grout and Tony Robinson have been in touch with Oxfordshire County Council (OCC) to try and get them unblocked but without success since June. They asked Town Councillor David Eggleton if he could help as a few years ago he worked with OCC to get the drains on the Gainsborough estate fixed. When David put a broom handle into the worst drain (pictured below), it was solid for over a metre!
David said, “I know from my experience that unless it is reported as a failed drain, CPC (OCC contractors) will just come along with their lorry which has a hoover and water jet to sluice out the drain and they will just spend 10 mins on each. If they need to unblock a drain like this it will take between 1-2 hours to properly clear it. In some cases they need to dig the road up as they can’t unblock the drain. This whole area needs looking at. This isn’t the only problem; there are many failed drains on Greys Road, St Marks and St Andrews which means there is more water coming down the hill into the cul-de-sacs.
Tony phoned for John Grout and sent an email in June to OCC. After no response he then phoned up a few times after which someone came out to look at it. They went away and still nothing was done. Tony said, “I phoned them again and they came back out, cleaned the other one out across the road. When the contractors were asked about this drain, they said it wasn’t on their records. I reported the drain on Fix My Street in June and it said it had been passed on to the appropriate department. I have chased the contractors when I’ve seen them up the road and asked them to come and look at our drains as there are several blocked in Upton Close not just this one. When we have heavy rain it comes up over the pavement and into my garden. There is soakaway ditch behind us next to Jewson which needs looking at too as there are lots of fallen branches in it. I’ve reported this to South Oxfordshire District Council but they say it is Jewson’s responsibility?”
John added, “It’s been going on for at least 2 years. It has come up to my front door when we get the heavy rain which we’re expecting again. In the past, it has been bad and it floods the whole road and eventually it does filter away. After months, they (OCC) finally said if it rains heavily, get in touch and we will try and get you some sand bags and if it rains really bad we’ll close the road but you’ve got to just let us know!”
