Floods!

Driving through Surbiton Hill ward yesterday I encountered flooding such as I haven’t seen in years. I notice that James Berry MP posted a picture of it outside his office in Ewell Road during the down pour.

This used to be a feature of life until Jane Smith, Janet Bowen-Hitchings and I campaigned successfully to get all the gullies cleared regularly. First we had to get the Highway engineers to map their locations accurately. Some were choked with silt in which grass was growing and one outside Bourne House in Langley Avenue was blocked with cement!

Yesterday Upper Brighton Road near St. Matthew’s Avenue was a lake for a while – something I’d never seen before. I was glad to see that some of the other former flood areas were clear thanks to functioning gullies and drains.

But would our successors please note: the price of dry roads is perpetual vigilance to see that the drainage system is properly maintained.