In response to many complaints from parishioners about the impassability of the track alongside the sewage works, on the 20^th December ’18, councillors Webster, Rogers and Walton met with the lengthsman Greg Robinson at the gate of the Stodday water treatment works.

There had been heavy rain overnight and the trackway from there almost to the old railway line was totally flooded from verge to verge to a depth of 12″+. We met a number of local residents with their wet and bedraggled dogs struggling to walk through the deep muddy water; a completely unacceptable situation.

However, Greg showed us a drainaway halfway along the track that he had been able to clear and this was running fast but unfortunately did not have the capacity to clear the heavy flooding…see photos.

Further along the track towards the river the stream disappeared underground into a culvert; this underground pipe Greg thought must be blocked in some manner. The culvert mouth is hidden below water level in a very deep pool and will be impossible to clear until the weather dries up and the water level drops.

The stream appears to continue underground for about an eighth of a mile until it reaches an open pit-like area within the trees to the landward side of the railway line. Here the water flow from the pipe emerging from the culvert seems sluggish before it disappears into another culvert under the railway line.

Greg suggested and all the councillors agreed that the stream itself needed a JCB type digger to clear out the visible dyke as it is heavily silted up and seriously overgrown in places.

Councillor Walton agreed to contact Gina Dowding (our local County Councillor) to further the process towards a meeting with United Utilities to try to find a long term solution to the almost permanent flooding of this neglected waterway.