Hadnall, Shrewsbury and houses are having flooding issues, but even more houses are planned for the area.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00So we're here in Hadnall on a rather splendid looking development, but it comes with its
00:07own problems. How you doing guys? So we've got Paul, local vicar, and we've got residents
00:14here, lived here since April? Correct. And you've had issues with the water coming up
00:19through the toilet and so on three times? Three times since we moved in, yeah. And then
00:24we've got a potential buyer who's ten years searching for the dream bungalow, he's found
00:28it but now he's discovering there's a few problems. That's right, yeah. So what's been
00:33happening then to residents here? Just fill us in Paul. Well it seems there's quite a
00:38few different houses that are finding sewage coming up. I mean it's been fountaining out
00:43of one of the manhole covers in the road there. Pool Road is affected, Hall Drive is affected,
00:51the lady living right next to the culvert has been out of her house twice and she still
00:56hasn't got any carpets and I've had to wade through the sewage by her front door and I
01:02actually ended up with e-coli because of that. No way! Which wasn't very nice. So a whole
01:07load of problems. So you were quite lucky in that respect that it was coming up, didn't
01:13quite overflow the toilet? No, we were very fortunate but there are other people that
01:17haven't been so lucky and it needs fixing. Yeah, so some have had it coming over the
01:21toilet into their houses and it's been flooding out that way. So what do we think the problem
01:27is then? We were having a chat and you used to work in a civils background. I'm gathering
01:33from what I'm hearing, the people that built this estate have probably used the right pipes
01:37and so on for what they've built, but the system that that's linked onto is a system
01:43built originally just for a small village and that's where the problem is. The infrastructure
01:47is not capable of taking all the new developments that have been built in Hadnall. And not only
01:54that, obviously there's surface water coming off the road which is going into the foul
01:59system which obviously doesn't help the situation anymore and that's probably what these people
02:07have been experiencing. And I'm wondering if the capacity of Severn Trent to pull the
02:13sewage up out of the hill out of Hadnall is also being constrained by the pipe work
02:20up to Battlefield to go towards Monkmoor. I was told that the pipes might actually be
02:25over 50 years old, those pipes. Well I would imagine so because the pipe that's in the
02:29main road, I understand because I've seen the drawing, is only a nine inch pipe which
02:34is 225 in diameter. Now to me that is not capable of taking all the effluent. That's
02:41in the main village road. So it would have been perfectly fine for the little village
02:49it was, but not for all these extra houses. Am I right in understanding they're on about
02:54building even more? There's a plan for Keown Homes, who it's quite significant is actually
03:01a sister company of Cameron Galliers who built this lot, are planning 45 more houses, about
03:08a couple of hundred yards down the road. That's going to come past here to the sewage
03:16station. So there's going to be more backing up here isn't there? Plus the fact a pumping
03:20station needs upgrading to do the work it needs to do to get the effluent away. So really
03:27there's quite a lot of work it sounds like potentially needs doing, not digging up these
03:31roads, these new roads that have been down about five years, but in the existing village
03:35itself really to upgrade, that's part of the system. There's another separate issue
03:40is the storm water off this development, where that storm water goes to. Because it goes
03:45to a ditch in the field at the back of this development. And you've actually been down
03:51at one point so that was all blocked up wasn't it? Which is not going to help. It has been
03:56freed a little, but in my estimation it's not enough. So even if they say, because you've
04:03got the galleys coming to meet you is it next week? Yeah Cameron Homes on Monday morning,
04:09which is good of them to actually dare to dialogue with us, because we all just want
04:12the thing solved. I just hope 7th Trent will dare to speak to people. So even if next week
04:21they said yeah this is what it's needed, like you were saying, it's going to be a couple
04:26of years potentially isn't it? It's going to be a lot of work isn't it? Infrastructure
04:29scheme has been sorted, implemented, contractors get on to do it, that's going to take 18 months
04:38to 2 years. And with the way authorities are, they can keep batting it back as long as they
04:43want. So would I be right in saying the local authority, the council have to take some responsibility
04:48as in they shouldn't be granting planning permission for new developments when the old
04:53systems that the infrastructure is going to tag onto can't handle it? We have a good flood
04:57risk officer in Shropshire, John Bellis, what I'm not clear about is whether he's actually
05:03being listened to by the rest of the council. This is quite clearly what's called a groundwater
05:08flood plain in Hadnall. The Environment Agency don't seem to be acknowledging that. So it
05:14just sets the wrong context for this whole discussion. And we all know that 7th Trent
05:19want the connection fees, but I don't think they should get to that stage until the infrastructure
05:25is actually properly in place. I don't even know if the sensors work properly at the
05:30sewage station. Why should Pam Stephenson have to physically ring up 7th Trent every
05:36time the level's rising? As a civils man, knowing what you know now about the pipes,
05:44if you were looking at before this planning permission for these houses were given, would
05:48you have, would that have caused alarm, would you have thought I don't think that system's
05:52going to be able to take it? I would say so, yeah. So it should have been foreseen
05:57that there was going to be. And like Paul said, there's contributions given to councils
06:06to tap onto this. So every house on here has given, or Cameron Homes have given a certain
06:14amount of money, I don't know what that amount of money is, but it's given them a certain
06:17amount of money for every plot on this development towards its upkeep and to whatever it needs
06:24to be done to upgrade the infrastructure. But obviously that money's been, it's been
06:30put somewhere else, hasn't it? Maybe it's gone to shareholder dividends. It's not county
06:35council, maybe it's not county council, I mean they're making cuts anyway, so, you know,
06:39it's, they're robbing Peter to pay Paul. You were quite lucky, weren't you really, in terms
06:43of the water, it came up to just the top of the levels, that right? Yes, it came up to
06:47just under the rim, it was dirty water, it sat there for quite some time until the water
06:52started to reside, if you like, outside and then slowly it kind of glugged away and went
06:59down to nothing. So you had no toilets you could use then, really, no? You can use upstairs,
07:05all of the problem is downstairs with the washing machine, the sink, the dishwasher.
07:10Upstairs isn't a problem because I think the water sits on the ground outside and that's
07:15up down here. So behind you is the property, currently empty, but this is the one you got
07:21your art set on, wasn't it? And like you say, you've been looking for the right one for
07:24ten years, so, you know, it wasn't a flippant decision. So you're still 50-50 really as
07:29to what to do. We still haven't made the decision whether to back out of the contract or not.
07:35So there's a patchwork of carpet pieces that tell the tale. How you doing madam, you okay?
07:42What's your name? Pam Stevenson. And Pam, if we go into this room, this room looks even
07:47more apictured, doesn't it? So you've been, you've lived here how long, Pam? 2017, 7 years.
07:58And you were first flooded when? October 23. And you've had stuff coming up from the sewers
08:10outside, right on the patios and the front. That was in July 2019 and then again in October 24.
08:22Yeah, so you've had it in the house as well, not sewage but water. And not much water either,
08:30but it's enough to... So it's trashy carpets, furniture and so on. So how long's it been like
08:37this then, Pam? October. Yeah, so you're all over Christmas and... Yes, I had family from Australia
08:44over Christmas and we just lived in that part of the house. Yeah, yeah. So are you echoing what
08:52I'm hearing that there wasn't a problem until all this new development started, a new building of
08:59houses in the village? I don't know because we were only here two years before that. Yeah.
09:04You know, I can't... Two years, there's not that long of a gap. Yeah, yeah. We didn't have a problem before that.
09:10But you certainly are getting problems now. Yes, yes. And how does it leave, does it leave you...
09:17Because obviously it's not resolved in the sense that you could obviously get some new carpet and
09:21that down, which I'm sure you will. But I guess it leaves you thinking how long until it happens
09:26Yes. In fact, I even said it to the, by email, to the loss adjusters because they're chasing the people that are going to be doing the repairs to the house, but I'm saying, but I've had three times that I've been worried since October.
09:49Yeah, three times thinking is it coming again? Yeah, yeah. Neighbours have even, one neighbour has even
09:56built me a temporary wooden barrier to stop the water from the culvert coming in. Yeah. But the
10:04problem from the sewerage is whenever there's heavy rain. Yeah, yeah. I just, I mean it doesn't
10:14come into the house, but it stops me being able to use any facilities. Yeah. So twice I've had
10:21to move out with family when they've been here. Yeah. Because you can't live in the house without
10:27sewers. Does it leave you feeling, does it taint your home? You know, does it, you know what I mean? Well I'm trapped. Yeah.
10:41Yeah. It's getting a bit big, the garden. Yeah. The house I need because I have no family living in
10:48this country, so when they come they have to, you know, they're staying with me. Yeah. But
10:55it's no fun when they're staying and we don't have toilets. Yeah, exactly, yeah.