£200m flooding investment

Flooding

With more flood misery predicted for parts of Britain after nearly a month's worth of rain fell in just three hours, United Utilities said today they are pouring £200millon to reduce the impact of sewer flooding in the north west of England.

The welcome investment in the region comes days after homeowners and businesses wring out mops and surveys the devastation caused by the wettest June on record, forecasters had more bad news: this month could also be the wettest July.

In 2010 United Utilities mobilised three major flood prevention programmes across the North West region to reduce the impact of flooding from their sewers.

Neil Henshall, Infrastructure Programme Analyst at United Utilities said, "Sewer flooding is a complex issue which often needs major investment to put right. During the 5-year period 2010-2015, we are pumping in £200m to tackle the worst affected areas.

"Most instances of flooding are experienced at times of heavy rainfall, when some of our sewers struggle to cope with demand.”

"When this happens, the sewer will surcharge and wastewater may escape from the sewer network. Unfortunately, this can result in some sewer flooding of properties – a nightmare for residents that we’re working hard to guard against.”

Water firms across England and Wales are responsible for protecting homes against sewer flooding due to hydraulic incapacity on their own assets.

Ofwat the industry regulator oblige companies to maintain a Flood Register for their local area. If the underlying sewer hydraulic problem can’t be resolved, where appropriate, a flood mitigation scheme is installed to protect the property.

Today the Environment Agency still had 24 flood alerts across parts of England.