Back, Ye Waters!
When it rains heavily you can see water flowing down from the Portsmouth Road towards Esher Station where it settles in the "dip" under the railway bridge. The resulting flood is over two feet deep on the west side of the road, and the pavement on the east side is submerged under a foot of water. Without a mile-long detour, the only route home for Weston Green commuters is under the bridge. This is the message I have been trying to convey to Network Rail for the past eight years! The situation really is dire. Short of rolling up your pin-stripes or removing your Manola Blaniks and wading through the water, commuters are dependent on their nearest and dearest providing a taxi service. This does not augur well for safety - frayed tempers, tired City workers and low blood sugar levels do not make for sensible and measured responses from stressed drivers. It should not have to be like this.
I had always been led to believe that it was lack of maintenance to the underground culvert and open ditch, which runs along the embankment from Esher Station to the Hampton Court Way, that caused the flooding. Oh that it were that simple! I have met, on site, with several Network Rail surveyors during the last eight years (they were never available when the area was actually flooded!) This resulted in two major clearances of the embankment and culvert. Alas, these clearances proved to be short-term solutions mainly because there was no maintenance programme.
In December of last year it became apparent that the problem was not as "localised" as I had previously thought. After a deluge of persistent rainfall we experienced yet another bout of deep flooding. I contacted Network Rail once more. They agreed to carry out a CCTV survey. This revealed much broken pipe-work and ingress of tree roots - even under the road where there are no trees! No doubt this was exacerbated by last year's very dry summer when trees were sourcing water from wherever they could. Highway matters fall under the remit of Surrey County Council. The culvert is the responsibility of Network Rail. Some of the pipe work also runs on private land. The involvement of several landowners makes everything more difficult and responsibility becomes complicated to assign. Nevertheless a meeting was arranged between a Network Rail Drainage Engineer, a Surrey County Council Senior Highways Officer and myself. We all met at Esher Station and it soon became clear to me that they were "speaking the same language" and were agreeing how to solve the problem - music to my ears! It was apparent that major work was necessary far beyond the culvert in question - two miles or so up the line - at Lynwood. The work commenced in January and has been on going until quite recently. The clearance work done by Network Rail is impressive and, should you feel inclined, you can see the work done at Long Arch, and beyond. Cllr Janet Turner (Residents' Association, Hinchley Wood) has been very active in monitoring the work done at that end and I am indebted to her for her help and support.
I still have two concerns that are causing me some angst. The first is the recent excessive growth of trees and scrub along the embankment on Ditton Common - the result no doubt, of the wet weather we have been experiencing. The second is the opinion that the pipe under the road needs to be replaced by Surrey County Council. A SCC officer told me that the clearance work was sufficient to alleviate the problem but I am yet to be convinced. I was encouraged that the recent deluge of rain did not result in the severe flooding experienced in the past and that the water receded much more rapidly. This winter will be the real test: I have a very strong feeling that there are more battles to be fought. Others may blithely suppose, and indeed others have glibly proposed, that the problem can be cleared up in a trice. But I learnt recently that this particular battle was joined much longer ago than I imagined… When Network Rail took a serious look at the records they inherited from predecessor organisations, they discovered that the problem was first reported by a Mr May on 16 March 1914! I am now researching the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles to see whether King Canute may earlier have tried to intervene within these Marshes.
RA Cllr. Tannia Shipley
footnote: The wider area was known as 'Ditton Marshes' before the Thames was tamed. Much of it was marshland. 'Marshes' may also have been a version of 'Marches'. 'March' derives from the Anglo-Saxon 'mearc' meaning boundary.