Flooding from surface water run off

[Andy_]

I've suffered surface water coming on to my property for about 4 years due to poor maintenance of drains and footpaths by my local county council.

They initially failed to clear a blockage in the drain outside a neighbours property, they then resurfaced the footpath outside my house and managed to reduce its overall height such that it was perfectly level with lowest point of the road camber, and finally they installed a drain outside my driveway that was set above the height of the footpath and connected to the existing blocked drain!

Thousands of pounds wasted to actually make the situation significantly worse.

This was all happening while I was carrying out my own building work which resulted in lost time due to flooded trenches etc.

I was finally compelled to raise the threshold of my property across a 70 foot span at some considerable cost which has been very successful.

Now I am attempting to recover the cost of building the 'flood defenses' from the county council. Last I heard they were trying to shift responsibility onto one of my neighbours across whose land the drain runs.

I've seen elsewhere that it is an offense to divert surface water onto the public highway, and that highways departments are responsible for maintaining drains in the roads.

Is it an offense for a county council to divert surface water onto private property?

[flowjoe]

Highways are responsible for the run off from the footpath and road and can not form the road so it floods you out, however i suspect they are saying that they have adequate drainage in place, but the system it discharges into has failed

If that is a riparian drain then it is up to whoever owns the land at the point of a collapse/failure to sort out the problem and maintain flow.

This is a grey area because in theory once somebody discharges into a riparian system they benefit from it, and it is no longer a riparian system. This changes from local authority to local authority though.

That is not to say that highways were not at fault in the time it took them to locate the defect and pass the buck

HTH

[Andy_]

At no time prior to my making a claim against them did they suggest that the drain blockage was anyone else's liability, and they now appear to have cleared the blockage, possibly at the discharge end where a flap on the outlet to a brook was being held almost closed. At no point have they contacted my neighbours.

I would imagine that if the liability lay with the land owner they could have issued an enforcement notice.

Why they had to alter the footpath and install a drain above footpath level before they tackled the actual blockage is beyond me.

I have a letter from one of the council's engineers which states that the pipe is partially blocked by roots and will have to be cleared using a root cutter. He also goes on to state that the council's insurance department 'feel the County Council is liable'. Pity this 'feeling' hasn't converted into a payout!

[Dave_L]

Although I sympathise with your situation Andy, I can't help getting the feeling that you're pissing into the wind here with this issue.

You'll no doubt be passed from pillar to post, dept to dept and have to start over each time........

[Andy_]

Well they do seem to have taken the claim seriously, in so much as it's been passed to their claims handling agents, but actually making progress beyond this point is another matter.

Their solicitors are looking at it at the moment, and I have no doubt they will find some reason why they shouldn't pay out.

It annoys me that the county council takes the lion's share of my council tax, so I'm effectively funding a cowboy builder management team!

I have no idea how much the county council have spent over the last 3 or 4 years on works related to this drain blockage, but looking at what was necessary and what was pointless additional expense, I would estimate it to be in the order of 80%+ wastage. That's one hell of a burden to be placing on the taxpayer.

[flowjoe]

Andy

you are bang on with your summary of the system as it works at the moment, and as from next year the `Authorities` take over all shared drainage in England. God help us!

I would concentrate on the period of time it took highways or whoever to investigate their own system, ultimately it may be somebody elses defect, but until very basic investigations were undertaken at the source of the flooding (Road gully etc....) the third party would not have the opportunity to act and rectify the problem.

In the mean time you had to suffer the inconvenience.

HTH