In Great Bedwyn they are mopping up after run-off water floods into houses and the surgery

[And see later news below.]

Great Bedwyn has been prone to flooding – and this has nothing to do with an overfull river.  This flooding is caused by rain water running off fields and not finding drains before it reaches homes.

On Tuesday morning (January 7) the fire brigade and a team from Wiltshire Council’s Balfour Beatty were busy pumping out and clearing rainwater drains in Church Street.  One home and the surgery had been flooded. Another home in Back Lane had also been flooded.

The surgery was still in action – though people had to be guided carefully around the fire brigade’s hoses in case one of them suddenly produced a spout of flood water.

And at the other end of the village there was yet another recurrence – the third since Christmas – of sewage lifting man-hole covers and flooding around one of the bungalows on The Knapp.  The occupant was too distressed to speak to Marlborough News Online.

By the time MNO arrived at 11.00 in the morning, no one from Thames Water had visited the affected bungalow in The Knapp or tried to stop the flow of sewage which was still running out of the man-holes, around the back door, through the garden and over the pavement into a rainwater drain in the road.

The Church Street and Back Lane damage was caused by water running off fields, across the allotments, around homes on Back Lane (and into at least one of them), building up and then flooding on downhill towards Church Street.

Great Bedwyn has suffered from flooding in 2000, 2003 and 2008.  But it was the floods in July 2012 that did most damage. A dozen homes and gardens in Church Street, Back Lane and Frog Lane were damaged – as well as a repeat of sewage flooding at The Knapp.

Following this incident Wiltshire Council prepared a report which identified several problems including an important gully that had been replaced by a householder with a pipe that was too small.  And local residents affected by the 2012 flooding set-up a Flood Group which in October 2013 produced a detailed action plan.

One of the most important remedial actions was to create a ditch between the fields and the allotments to take the run-off away from the village.

As one Church Street resident mentioned as they watched the fire brigade at work: “We’ve had lots of reports and we know they don’t stop the water – they’re worse than sand bags.”

 LATER NEWS: tankers sent by Thames Water arrived at The Knapp at about noon on Tuesday and began pumping out and removing sewage.  They were still there at 7.30pm.