A damp and dismal story...
If you read back issues of 'Thames Ditton Today' you will have seen that our RA Councillor Tannia Shipley of Weston Green has been battling for several years to get proper attention paid to clearing the culverts, ditches and drains near Esher Station. The road underneath the bridge by the station runs through a slight depression and drainage is critical. If drainage is not clear, moderately heavy rain causes serious flooding under the bridge. Even 4 x 4s are driven to mount the pavement on the wrong side of the road in order to pass the flood, which is too deep to ford. Pedestrians cannot pass without getting wet up to their knees. With the bridge impassable, alternative routes to and from home involve a walk of an additional mile or two.
Part of the drainage is a system of culverts and ditches on Network rail land. There is no public access to that land, and Network rail is legally obliged to keep the culverts clear. They respond, not always swiftly, to emergency calls when there are floods but they do not schedule routine maintenance and they have shirked major works, blaming parts of the drainage system that fall under Surrey County Council's Highways Department.
For their part, Surrey CC perform perfunctory inspections and point to parts of the system under Network rail's responsibility as likely to be primary causes.
The result - and not only in this instance - is a fine game of buck-passing that means the problem is not coherently tackled by both of these authorities responsible.
Gentle Tannia has the patience of a saint allied with the determination of Winston Churchill but anyone else would long ago have been driven to homicide!. The latest news episodes are given below...
Flooded Roads11 October 2006
More rain today and Network Rail's culvert from the bridge at Esher Station is blocked again, causing flooding up to a foot deep under the bridge. Our Weston Green Councillor Tannia Shipley drew this likelihood to the attention of Network Rail a week ago and was today pressing by telephone for urgent action and underlining yet again the need for regular maintenance to prevent this recurring.
16 October 2006
In response to Tannia, Network Rail began tackling the culvert on Monday 16 October and seeing whether regular clearance can be fitted into their rolling maintenance programme
24 October 2006
Network Rail's efforts to unblock the culvert draining water from under the bridge by Esher Station were not thorough enough and rain on the night of 23 October caused dramatic floods again - two foot deep for commuters to wade through!. Tannia made the telephone lines hot again and Network Rail have undertaken to do the right thing. This recurring problem really does require Network Rail to be responsive to the need for annual preventative work.
23 November 2006
Continuing the (seven-year long) saga of Councillor Tannia Shipley's efforts to prevent recurrence of the flooding under the bridge at Esher station.....
On 16 November Network Rail maintained that the person Tannia had been dealing with, via numerous phone calls and emails, had 'moved to another department'.
On the morning of Friday 17 November following further rain, there was bedlam at the station. Tannia could get no meaningful response from four telephone numbers at Network rail desks. She was later told the name of the person dealing with the problem - Network Rail asserting that "He is fully aware of the issues and is on the case"
On Monday 20 November, Network Rail (we hope they enjoyed their weekend)
contacted Tannia during the morning. However, this was not the desk dealing with the issue, but an emollient Regional Community Relations Manager who apologised: "The response to date has not been satisfactory and I have contacted the local Maintenance Team asking for
an urgent update as to their progress with resolving the issue".
Thursday 23 November and Network Rail emailed:
"....I am advised by our Maintenance Dept that they recently cleared all Network Rail drains in the area. They also ran a powerhose from one end of the drain affecting that piece of road, to the other end, and discovered that the water was disapearing somewhere in between, so clearly there is a leak. They then ran a CCTV camera through the pipe to ascertain where the leak was occurring, and experts are studying its findings today. Initial suggestions are that the leaking pipe is full of tree roots, if this were the case then the pipe would obviously need to be replaced, which would in itself require a road closure. .......This brings us to the big question of who owns the leaking pipe. Our initial thinking is that the Council do, but we are today checking our Drain Plans to double check. Would it be possible for you to do the same from the Council side ?"
Naturally, Tannia immediately contacted Surrey CC to check on that side.
1 December 2006
RA Councillor Tannia Shipley tells us that:
- Network Rail are replacing the broken and blocked pipe-work on their land but realise that it will push the problem down to the next outlet, which could need a visit from Thames Water. There are a few other drainage problems on the down side that have been affected and NR is going to resolve these. This will not be a quick fix and could take a number of weeks to complete.
- There also seems to be a blockage in a pipe running under the road which is Surrey CC's responsibility. Engineers and RA County Councillor Peter Hickman are keeping the pressure on them.
15 December 2006
After numerous 'phone calls and emails Tannia managed to get Network Rail to send their engineers to the site on 14 December. Wally Howe - SCC Senior Highways Engineer also attended. (Comment - a rare triumph to get the two authorities together). It appeared that the problem was much greater than originally thought. There was an additional blockage in Couchmore Avenue (in the Hinchley Wood Ward), that must be dealt with by SCC as it was on highway land. There had also been flooding in the Hampton Court Way area and at the bridge there - which is where the culvert draining Esher Station bridge emerges. Flooding had taken place around the Arch Cottage area and at the Dog Kennels on the Portsmouth Road. It seemed to be the consensus that, as the result of the blocked culvert and the blockage under the road and other various points, the water was escaping on to common land at the Scilly Isles and Ditton Common. The culvert along the embankment which runs from Esher Station to Hampton Court Way was also broken in parts and had to be repaired. The experts agreed that they should start from the furthest end of the problem and work towards Esher Station ie it's no good clearing the culvert at the uppermost end only to find that the water cannot get out at the lower end.
The big Surrey CC gulley cleaning machine had been promised for Thames Ditton on Monday 18th December and would then clear all the gullies in the Esher Station area. The deep ditch which runs along the highway at Station Road and Ember Lane was also scheduled to be cleaned out within the next few days.
However, subsequently the Surrey CC engineer averred that a major part of the problem was located on Network Rail's land near the dog kennels on the Portsmouth Road. He argued that when that was cleared, we should find an improvement at the station end..... The game of shifting blame and responsibility continues and we feared that this might be used as an excuse for Surrey to do nothing themselves in the meantime.
18 December 2006
Sure enough! Surrey Highways dept failed to send the promised drainbuster to Thames Ditton and Weston Green on 18 December. The appalling blocked drains on Station and Speer Roads, elsewhere in the village and by hard-hit Esher Station would not now receive attention before 8 January 2007 at the earliest.
13 January 2007
The contractors visited on 9 January with their big drainbuster and, under the supervision of Surrey CC official Wally Howe (it is good to have the contractors under supervision - thank you, Wally) carried out what appears to be a fairly thorough clearing of gullies in the station area. Tannia was also keeping an eye on things! Now the pressure is back on Network Rail: Tannia emailed them stating that Surrey have carried out their part of the agreed work. Some work has been done in Couchmore Avenue and we are checking to see whether the drain/culvert near the dog kennels on the Portsmouth Road has been cleared.
9 February 2007
Substantial work has been carried out by Network Rail and it has become apparent that the problem is even more complicated, involving about two miles of "pipework" - open ditches and culverts. Some of the work is still the responsibility of SCC and some is down to Network Rail. Both authorities have conceded which areas fall within their remit. The Network Rail Drainage Engineer met again with SCC's Highways Engineer, on 1 February, to agree the way forward. SCC's Highways Engineer Wally Howe is determined to resolve this problem before he retires in April.When NR took a serious look at the records they inherited from a line of predecessor organisations, they discovered that this particular problem was first reported by one Mr May on the 16 March 1914!