Residents have shared their concerns after a Nottinghamshire street where a major waterpipe was damaged earlier this year was flash flooded. Those living near High Road and Chilwell Road, in Chilwell, experienced a flash flood in afternoon of Sunday, June 18, leaving residents "scared".
This comes just over three months after the area was severely flooded when a Severn Trent waterpipe was damaged by "third party contractors on a construction site building new student accommodation" on Tuesday, March 7. The damage to the pipe led to a large amount of water bursting on to nearby streets and homes for hours and the area was flooded with an estimated 1.2 million litres of water every minute.
During a second residents' meeting on the issue, held on June 10 and attended by representatives of local authorities including Nottinghamshire County Council, those living in the area raised concerns about blocked drains in the area and their fears that heavy rainfall could cause the area to flood again.
Following the thunderstorms and flooding on Sunday, June 18, residents shared that they were worried about levels of water that build in High Road, which turns to Chilwell Road as the road heads towards Beeston.
Sue and Brian Jones haved lived on Lime Grove, a street of High Road, for 18 months, and had chosen the spot as their retirement home. Mrs Jones, 72, said: "The images of the High Road are awful. We were at home panicking because we knew the drains [in the streets] were blocked.
"Brian went out on our road and the water was up to the sills of the cars. It had come into our drive and it was quite deep.
"It was fairly controllable but it scared me - it really did. I think I said in the meeting that one drop of water scares me.
"When it eased off a little, Brian actually went out with gloves on and cleared the tops of the drain covers because they were all covered.
"We're so frustrated about this. We've only been here 18 months in our house and it's our sort of retirement house, now look what we're facing along with everybody else."
Joan Etchells, 68, who lives near High Road but is currently living in a hotel following the flooding in March, added: "We actually got caught in it. We got on at Toton [Toton Lane tram stop] and three stops down the driver stopped and we were told everyone needs to get off because High Road was flooded.
"It was absolutely bonkers and the first thing I thought when they said High Road was flooded is that this was brought up at the meeting. It shouldn't be happening.
"It should be sorted, it's absolutely ridiculous. It didn't rain for that long, this is the thing - it's absolutely crazy it really is."
Local businesses have also shared their opinions. Callum Tighe owns Levi’s Barbershop in Chilwell Road. The 26-year-old had gone to the shop to do some maintenance work when he was hit with the floods.
Mr Tighe, who also lives in the area, said: "It's not just bad on High Road, it's bad on the roads coming off it. It looked like it was going up to some of the shop doors on shops that were slightly lower.
"It's not good for local businesses. You know the water isn't going to drain well. I don't mind going to the shop in a bit of rain but when it's more than a bit of rain, you might as well be getting wellies on at this point.
"Yesterday to get into work I literally had to take a different route because of the levels of water on the street. Its an inconvenience that needs to be addressed.
A Severn Trent spokesperson said: “We’re very sorry to hear about the surface flooding in Chilwell over the weekend, as we know how devastating any type of flooding can be. We had no reports of any issues of sewer flooding on High Road, or problems with our network, indicating that our network was operating as it should.
“Surface flooding results from a large volume of rain falling in a short amount of time which can’t drain away quickly enough, this can sometimes be down to blockages in the drains and gullies that the local highways authority and council own.”
A Highways manager from Nottinghamshire County Council said: “Thunderstorms in Nottinghamshire caused a significant amount of intense rainfall on Sunday, which led to road surface flooding in some areas and our Incident Response Team attending a number of incidents in the County.
“With these types of weather events, we need to prioritise the sites we attend based on the risk to residents and road users. We attended Chilwell in the early hours of Monday morning and on arrival, any surface water flooding from the rainfall had drained away.
“Our gully cleansing teams are planning to check the gullies in the area and undertake an additional clean, where necessary. Drainage systems do have a specific capacity and when intense rainfall events occur, this can result in surface water not being able to drain quickly enough, causing short-term surface water flooding.”
