Sewage in garden, again, need advice to get Thames Water to do something

poppellerant

warehouse wrote: »

Local paper just called, they're coming over tomorrow for some pictures and a chat.

I never realised how much of your garden was affected, until I saw your video. That's a lot of garden affected and I imagine from the toys in the garden you have children also. :eek:

Get the kids ready to pose for their photo tomorrow, complete with garden toys and sad faces. :beer:

Seriously - make sure the papers realise how much garden is affected. And ask who is going to pay for the clean up operation.

warehouse

poppellerant wrote: »

I never realised how much of your garden was affected, until I saw your video. That's a lot of garden affected and I imagine from the toys in the garden you have children also. :eek:

Get the kids ready to pose for their photo tomorrow, complete with garden toys and sad faces. :beer:

Seriously - make sure the papers realise how much garden is affected. And ask who is going to pay for the clean up operation.

My wife is a childminder and the garden is well used, even in winter due to the trampoline, but that's totally out of bounds now. Same for my son and football at the top where it's flat. I've told him he'll be posing tomorrow with a football and a glum face :rotfl:.

chezybezy

glad you are getting some movement in the right direction, fingers crossed!

warehouse

...and sewage flood number 7 is happening right now.

Thames Water rep visiting at 10am.
Local paper sending reporter over at 1pm, but might ring them and get it put forward.

oz0707

How did it go with the rep?

warehouse

oz0707 wrote: »

How did it go with the rep?

Very good thanks. He told me everything that they know, what they intend to do regarding stopping it happening again and how they intend to find and fix the real issue. There are people and trucks everywhere, and I even spotted a tracked vehicle that is going to try to get to a remote manhole/access cover to work from downstream.

The real issue with all of this has been a complete lack of communication from Thames Water, so why they didn't do this after flood no.1 is still a mystery.

The ombudsman will be coming back to me to find out where the failings were, the MP needs to be answered by Thames, the paper have done their thing and I expect environmental health will be in touch, (I'm still surprised at their lack of urgency on this).

All we ever wanted were 2 things:
To get the problem fixed
To get the garden back to it's original state and safe

That appears to be happening. Until they fix the issue we're going to have a lorry visit every day to pump out the waste so it doesn't get to the point of overflowing. I'll keep the thread updated.

oz0707

Result then. Took some effort mind!

J_B

warehouse wrote: »

... and I expect environmental health will be in touch, (I'm still surprised at their lack of urgency on this).

Did you say that your wife was a childminder?

Do you think they will close down her business as an 'elf azzard'???

:eek:

Debbie_Savard

>getting some movement in the right direction<

The 'movements' are all down the OPs garden path!:rotfl:

warehouse

Update:

So the Thames Water people spent all day here. They found the next manhole downstream and were able to find the issue. It was silt in the line. Now I thought silt was a fine substance, but apparently if not cleared and with hard water it turns extremely hard. They were bringing out bags of the stuff and it looked like a solid coal type substance. No wonder we were getting so many blockages.

Once cleaned they were able to get a camera up to confirm it was completely clear. That does appear to have fixed the issue. Why it took 7 lots of flooding and me kicking off to everyone I could possibly think of, (and suggested in this thread), is anyone's guess. A complete lack of communication between Thames Water and Lanes, (who clear the blockages), being my favorite guess. Thames have to report back to my MP with what they've done which is probably what started the big fix.

The garden is wrecked. I've had a company over sent by Lanes who have removed all the waste. They were very good. Thames have told me to get some gardeners over to get quotes for repairing all damage done.

They also tell me they'll be having a meeting this week to discuss why this happened, how to stop it happening again and how much they are willing to pay for the disruption, (not holding my breath on the last one).