Date received: 13 March 2020
Signatories received: 9
Name of petitioner: Cllr Susan Woodward
Petition response:
I refer to the petition, signed by local residents regarding the flooding on Ironstone Road.
Standing or ponding water on the road surface or on footways can occur for a variety of reasons. Standing water can occur in low spots on the road and generally forces vehicles to move away from the road edge. Pedestrians may have to walk around standing water where this occurs on footways.
A common problem that might create this issue is a nearby gulley which has become blocked but this is not always the cause. Whilst it is tempting to report a problem like this during rainfall, we would always advise to wait until 2 hours after rainfall has passed.
Many highway drainage systems are of historic design and their capacity simply cannot cope with the storms that we now see more regularly. If standing water has not drained away 2 hours after rainfall, then this could mean there is a problem rather than a capacity or slow-running issue. The County Council’s Highway Partners Amey have recorded slow-running issues on Ironstone Road which require ad-hoc work to be carried out to jet the system. There is no scheduled date for when this work will be carried out. I can assure you this work will be completed as and when resources allow.
In the recent weeks we have experienced extreme weather creating larger volumes of surface water that our road gully’s do not have the capacity for. To monitor locations, The County Council operates a comprehensive routine inspection regime and all roads on the 3500 mile public highway network are inspected monthly, quarterly or annually depending on their road classification.
Ironstone Rd is on a quarterly routine inspection and the general condition of the whole road is assessed during this type of inspection. Any identified drainage defects that meet intervention level are risk assessed, categorised, and scheduled accordingly through the works system. Ironstone Rd was last visited on 29th June 2020 and as part of this routine inspection our inspectors did not find any actionable defects relating to drainage issues that haven’t been record already. I have shared your petition with our Operations Team to inform them of the reported flooding. The road will continue to be monitored in the interim
Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention. I hope the above goes some way to reassuring you that we are monitoring the location