Rights reguarding flooding from neighbours farmland

[Dexta59]

My neighbouring farmer has a piece of land that as far I know is still in a stewardship scheme, it started about 25 years ago the field has 7 deep drains that run across it, they haven’t been cleared in that time and they need the water pumping out of them into the adjacent river this never happens and over the years the water levels keep getting higher and closer to my barns and are ruining one of my fields as it is under water all winter which it wasn’t many years ago,
Is there any course of action I can take and do I have any rights in this, asking on here before I try and take it any further

 

[teslacoils]

Who has the high ground, and which way should your water flow?

 

[Dexta59]

Who has the high ground, and which way should your water flow?

Neither really were both the same, we have a ditch run through the middle of the property which drains our water and is at full capacity, their ditches start at the back of my property and are suppose to take the water away his direction but his field is flooded and the overflow is flowing onto my land

 

[Flat 10]

My neighbouring farmer has a piece of land that as far I know is still in a stewardship scheme, it started about 25 years ago the field has 7 deep drains that run across it, they haven’t been cleared in that time and they need the water pumping out of them into the adjacent river this never happens and over the years the water levels keep getting higher and closer to my barns and are ruining one of my fields as it is under water all winter which it wasn’t many years ago,
Is there any course of action I can take and do I have any rights in this, asking on here before I try and take it any further

Not many private pumping systems in the U.K.? Don’t think anyone is obliged to pump except IDBs? Only to allow the water flow downhill.

 

[teslacoils]

Neither really were both the same, we have a ditch run through the middle of the property which drains our water and is at full capacity, their ditches start at the back of my property and are suppose to take the water away his direction but his field is flooded and the overflow is flowing onto my land

Ah, so your water should flow into ditches on his, which should then flow away into the river?

 

[Dexta59]

Ah, so your water should flow into ditches on his, which should then flow away into the river?

No ours go in the opposite direction
His ditches meet in a ditch about half a mile away and would need pumping into the river further up stream

 

[teslacoils]

Ok, so yours are full because your water isn't getting away in the opposite direction, or because his has backup up putting more pressure on yours? But in any case, water in your ditch flows away from you but not onto into this farmers drainage system?

 

[Dexta59]

 

[Dexta59]

The main river is in big blue which all ditches flow into, the small small lines are out ditches
The ones you can see in the bottom is theirs and flow opposite to us

 

[teslacoils]

So you have a ditch that flows into the river. To the LHS of the blue dot with grey circle around it. How high is the water in the river, and is the water in your blue ditch higher than the river level?

 

[Dexta59]

So you have a ditch that flows into the river. To the LHS of the blue dot with grey circle around it. How high is the water in the river, and is the water in your blue ditch higher than the river level?

The water level are roughly the same as it’s so flat but yes the ditch that runs through our propert runs into the river no problem and is draining all the water from the area it can behind ours the ditches were dug to channel the water away so our ditch cannot help with them

 

[Goweresque]

No one is obliged to pump water to prevent water flowing downhill, so if your land is at a lower level than the neighbours then if his floods, so does yours and you have to accept that. And deal with the flooding as best you can on your side of the boundary.

What you are describing as 'drains' in the neighbours field don't seem to be drains, in that they don't appear to outflow to anywhere. And one doesn't usually have fields drained by multiple open ditches in parallel. What is the field used for? Are you sure they aren't actually some sort of environmental feature? Wetland areas, that sort of thing?

 

[Dexta59]

No one is obliged to pump water to prevent water flowing downhill, so if your land is at a lower level than the neighbours then if his floods, so does yours and you have to accept that. And deal with the flooding as best you can on your side of the boundary.

What you are describing as 'drains' in the neighbours field don't seem to be drains, in that they don't appear to outflow to anywhere. And one doesn't usually have fields drained by multiple open ditches in parallel. What is the field used for? Are you sure they aren't actually some sort of environmental feature? Wetland areas, that sort of thing?

 

[Dexta59]

No one is obliged to pump water to prevent water flowing downhill, so if your land is at a lower level than the neighbours then if his floods, so does yours and you have to accept that. And deal with the flooding as best you can on your side of the boundary.

What you are describing as 'drains' in the neighbours field don't seem to be drains, in that they don't appear to outflow to anywhere. And one doesn't usually have fields drained by multiple open ditches in parallel. What is the field used for? Are you sure they aren't actually some sort of environmental feature? Wetland areas, that sort of thing?

The field hasnt been used in years and there probably turning it into fenland fair enough,
The ditches are all open and flow into a main one at the bottom of photo which it would then need to be pumped into main river
My problem is that they do nothing to stop it when it overflows onto ours and have been getting payed for it for years

 

[teslacoils]

Yes, it looked proper flat which won't help. And those in the field look like some kind of open cuts designed to fill with water and then slowly drain away in spring. Some kind of wetland recreation .

It's this pumped bit that's the problem, as has been said it's unlikely that there has ever been any pump to remove water from the neighbours ditch to the river. And the chances of getting the paperwork to do so are negligible.

Sorry, can't be more helpful but at least plenty of pics etc for someone more minded.

 

[farmerm]

Its ok, when grants for reservoir creation arrive in ELMS you know just where to put one....

 

[Princess Pooper]

We had a problem with our neighbour (upstream) complaining that we hadn't cleaned our stretch of the stream so it was backing up and flooding his on the topside of an under-road culvert.

We did clean it out, but as the Catchment Sensitive Farming project leader for our area in the very early days, I did put a photo up at a public meeting (no names) of his field as an example of dreadful soil erosion - winter cropping littered with rills as he has a spring up on the hill and has given it nowhere to go other than across his crop.

That is where all the sediment in the stream was coming from.

 

[Flat 10]

Well blow me. Just realised where this is I think. Neighbouring farmer is on here too........
Have you spoken to him @Dexta59?

 

[Flat 10]

View attachment 936690

Just thinking about this, the big blue ditch flowing North to the left of your diagram is pretty deep isn't it? So you can make your ditches in blue pretty deep? Have they been dug out recently?

 

[Dexta59]

Well blow me. Just realised where this is I think. Neighbouring farmer is on here too........
Have you spoken to him @Dexta59?

Nope don’t know who he is I think the original owner has changed a couple of years ago though