Following the heavy rain overnight and the early morning flooding under the railway bridge in Lower Barn Road which caused issues for some commuters, the RRA have contacted the Council about this.
We have commented to the Council that many of Riddlesdown’s streets have not been cleaned by Veolia for well in excess of 6 weeks (if not longer). There are leaves everywhere on footways, gutters and in the carriageways. Many gully grids are blocked and have been for some time (especially in Lower Barn Rd) and some have long term debris matter in them and not just with the current leaf fall. Lower Barn Rd gully grids are awful and it isn’t surprising this flooding happens so frequently now.
We have asked for some urgent action to clear all gully grids locally to stop this flooding happening again with all the rain we are getting at the moment and to clean the streets. We have received many complaints recently, particularly from the elderly that footways are extremely slippery with leaf fall (especially by the station entrance under the rail bridge in LBR) and made worse when it is frosty.
It needs to be remembered this area under the rail bridge is the lowest level from far away, such as Honister Heights, top of Mitchley Hill, top of Rectory Park, Westfield Ave, top of Coombe Wood Hill etc and all surface water from these roads, if not collected on route in road gullies, flows and ponds at this low point in Lower Barn Rd. It covers a large area of streets.
In return the Direct of Public Realm at the Council has responded:
“that the torrential rain last night has seen a few locations around the borough experiencing localised flooding which the teams are dealing with.
I note your comment regarding gully clearing and I am aware in roads where they are heavily parked it is not easy to access all gullies and as such this puts added pressure on those that are accessible. We will check the gullies in and around the station and where necessary cleanse, if there are gullies further up the road that need attending too they will put together a plan to close the road and cleanse them all.
Veolia do bring in additional resources to undertake leaf clearing, this is an additional service to the routine street cleansing activity. We will arrange for the streets to be checked and cleansed where necessary.
If not already I would appreciate if you could encourage residents to report environmental issue through our online reporting processes, I have attached a useful leaflet which you may want to circulate.”
We have responded in respect of the on street parking comment that it can only get worse, with all the new flats being approved locally by Planners and insufficient on site parking and more vehicles will therefore be parking on the roads causing more street cleaning issues!
We will continue to monitor the situation.
This is the link to the Council website to report Environmental issues.