Council draining water into our field.

[caveman]

Aye, the Highways Act 1980 does do that. Section 100:



With regards to subsection (3), what's the value of the tons of topsoil that's been washed away due to their actions?

Seems to me that the above means that highway water could be diverted/directed into existing ditches or drains or the same as installed by the highways authority at their expense and not directly onto the surface of adjoining land.
As to compensation.
That probably applies to losses due to activities involved in installing drains or ditches on your land under the act. Not the washing away of it.

 

[caveman]

Thanks to this thread I've taken photos that show there are no cuts through the roadside bank next to our local blocked drain. This has been there for 2 months.
View attachment 859294View attachment 859295
There's a grid under there.
The water is moving into the field slowly.

Is the drain full of hedge trimmings?

 

[Nearly]

Is the drain full of hedge trimmings?

No.
Contractors resurfaced the road and tarmaced into the grate and over it. Council have replaced grate but not cleaned it out yet.

 

[Pennine Ploughing]

Well blow me down with a feather, what no matches

 

[jd6210r]

Came upon this today, council installed a lovely 9” twin wall pipe to Help stop the road flooding, came upon a 10” fire clay pipe which drains a good chunk of the bottom of the farm and crosses the road into a ditch, smashed through our pipe laid theres in and poured concrete around the whole “joint” causing major problems on our side. Worst of it is their pipe was running a trickle at best and the road is still puddled ?

 

[Exfarmer]

Thats the level of the stupidity of the staff they employ, sadly such features are common, we had this issue when the council piped a road side ditch near us 50 years ago. If there is no water in the pipe on the day, they just assume that it is no longer functioning.
Much of this road flooding is a total lack of ditch maintenance , or the ditch was piped to widen the road. Their has been no pipe maintenance since and it is now blocked solid and no amount of belated gulley cleaning can shift 20 years accumulated leaves, sand , stone and tarmac

 

[Swarfmonkey]

@caveman

One of our test sites at work was flooded due to a local authority diverting surface water off a road and on to the site. The in-house legal bods sent a bill to them along with a rather strongly worded letter (the damage was not inconsiderable). The LA tried to fob it off, right to the point where they were notified of impending legal action. Then they paid up.

 

[Exfarmer]

@caveman

One of our test sites at work was flooded due to a local authority diverting surface water off a road and on to the site. The in-house legal bods sent a bill to them along with a rather strongly worded letter (the damage was not inconsiderable). The LA tried to fob it off, right to the point where they were notified of impending legal action. Then they paid up.

I suspect if you were prepared to use lawyers to the extent of fighting a court case based on human rights legislation ( right to peaceful enjoyment of your property) the councils would back off. If only someone would be prepared to go that far, it might establish a precedent to force councils to stop this practice. However the cost would be huge and not necessarily recouped. When councils come up against corporations with deep pockets they regularly backtrack rather than face court action at rate payers expense, which is why we see so many poor housing developments across the land.

 

[Flat 10]

No.
Contractors resurfaced the road and tarmaced into the grate and over it. Council have replaced grate but not cleaned it out yet.

Go on fix my street, put up photos and explain problem is a danger to life and they will more than likely fix within 6 weeks. Works pretty well when I have tried it.

 

[Swarfmonkey]

@Exfarmer

HRA has numerous opt outs - they're qualified rights, not absolute rights - so I imagine it would be a bit of nightmare to take the buggers to court using that particular bit of legislation. In-house legal used the Highways Act against the LA. Sadly, it was my test rig that was flooded out by the actions of the incompetent cretins at the local authority. Still, the Mk 2 version turned out to be a far better bit of kit, so there was a silver lining to the cloud.

 

[D14]

We have a field below a main road. Its always taken one pipe off main road thats joined into our field drain.

Last year they decided to add a second pipe without asking. The field drain isn't now fit to cope with increased water from 2nd pipe and its running down field. Causing erosion. We did point this out to them at the time.

Who is liable for this? To solve the problem a larger pipe needs to be put in to the ditch where the drain comes out.

Same thing here years ago. Challenged them and they refused to remove it, so over a bank holiday weekend we dug it up and rerouted it into the highways ditch. Been there ever since.