Avoidable flooding caused by poorly maintained drains
On August 16, 2020, St Neots, after torrential rainfall, several areas of St Neots experienced severe flash flooding, causing distress to residents, and leaving them with a lifetime of increased insurance premiums.
I led calls for the County Council to urgently address this problem and have asked residents to submit reports of blocked drains through CCC website.
The Hunts Post published this article in response to my letter to them (reproduced in full below). I will continue to hold them accountable until the drains are cleared.
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I am writing to express my extreme disappointment in the extent of the flooding in St Neots this weekend, causing severe damage and dismay to residents and businesses.
My view is that much of this flooding was avoidable. It was exacerbated and perhaps even caused by poorly maintained drains in the town centre, many of which are blocked with silt and vegetation that suggests that they have not been cleaned for months or in some cases years.
Although Cambridgeshire County Council, the local authority responsible for their maintenance, will claim that this is a “freak weather occurrence”, it should be obvious that no drainage system can function properly if the majority of drains are blocked. Even a small number of blocked drains will lead to functioning parts of the drainage system, becoming quickly overwhelmed during a torrential rainstorm.
This level of neglect is even more shocking when one considers that CCC was fully aware of the risk of flash flooding. In 2012 they commissioned a report which concluded that “a heavy downpour could fill up drainage systems and the flood banks of the River Great Ouse, leaving residents in potential jeopardy of flooding”. The report singled out the Town Centre, Eynesbury Manor, Meadowsweet, and Riverside as the areas most at risk of flooding and suggested a £429k project to improve the drainage system, and predicted significant economic damage if those measures were not implemented.
Not only have CCC failed to improve the drainage system, but they have also failed to maintain it to the most basic levels, intentionally playing a game of “cost-cutting Russian Roulette” in which they hoped that the predicted flooding might never happen. Unfortunately, this gamble has backfired and left residents and businesses facing immediate distress and a lifetime of increased insurance premiums.
I urge my county council colleagues to launch an urgent investigation into the drains in St Neots and demand that blocked drains are cleared immediately. I am happy to join any of them on a walking tour of St Neots drains to demonstrate the extent of this problem.
Cllr Stephen Ferguson
Mayor of St Neots
