Council response to gully cleaning post flooding

Following the widespread flooding in Heywood after a short but heavy downfall of rain on 2 July, West Heywood Councillor Jacqui Beswick has receieved a response from the council to her enquiries:

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Further to your recent enquiry and from the reports received various streets in the following wards were subjected to flooding during the severe storm on Sunday evening 2 July:

• Heywood North
• Heywood West
• Middleton North
• Middleton South
• Middleton East
• Hopwood Hall
• Norden
• Bamford
• Spotland and Falinge
• Milkstone and Deeplish
• Kingsway

From 8 August 2005 the whole gully cleaning function was transferred from Environmental Management to Highways and Engineering. This work is being carried out by Alfred McAlpine under the Term Maintenance Contract who are using two gully cleaning vehicles to a higher specification than was used previously with on board jetting equipment which enables cleansing of most gullies at one visit. In addition they employ a reactive repair team dealing with individual problems that are reported, usually by the public, of blocked gullies and repairs to faulty gullies and lids.
 
There are approximately 44000 road gullies in the Borough and initially it was our intention to attempt to clean all the gullies in a twelve month period to get the road drainage system operative. Basically that meant that each team would need to clean approximately 105 gullies per day to reach the above target. However due to the poor quality of the gullies, being severely blocked with silt etc this target has never been achieved. The gang working in the Middleton area are achieving 80-90 cleans a day but the team working in the Rochdale area are only achieving 50-60 cleans a day. Obviously the gullies in the Rochdale area are in far worse condition than the other area of the Borough. This has meant that it will be at least 18 months before all the gullies in the Borough will have been cleaned properly.
 
Initially the gullies on the main roads and the strategic routes were cleaned and subsequently the gullies on the other roads are being dealt with. In that respect the gullies on Bury Street, Bridge Street, Pilsworth Road etc were all cleaned last September/October.
 
During periods of adverse weather the cyclic work is interrupted and all available resources are directed to deal with the various problems that occur. Therefore the gullies on the streets affected by the flooding throughout the Borough will have all been checked and instructions given to clean them to ensure that they are working properly. It should be borne in mind that more often than not flooding occurs when the main carrier drain, which is usually the responsibility of United Utilities, is full to capacity and cannot accept any more water. In these circumstances the road gullies cease to function resulting in the floods.
 
It is our intention to evaluate the road drainage system once all the gullies have been cleaned to enable priorities to be established and to target the vulnerable areas of the Borough to ensure that gullies in these areas are dealt with on a more frequent basis. Unfortunately the size of the problem is far greater than was originally thought but I am confident that we will soon be at a more sustainable and efficient position and be able to target the resources into the areas that need them the most.