Flood of outrage
by Hammersmith and Fulham Press Office
14/10/2008
Thames Water bosses faced a flood of outrage from the residents of Hammersmith Grove, Boscombe Road and Askew Road at a council run scrutiny meeting last week.
Some residents have been flooded three of four times since 2004 and were astonished when red faced Thames Water officials told them a £2.5 billion super sewer scheme will do ‘absolutely nothing to alleviate flooding in the borough’.
The scrutiny meeting, on October 8, was a follow-up to a similar meeting last year, which was prompted by at least 300 flooding complaints following the 20 July 2007 deluge.
The council summoned Thames Water to the town hall to report on any progress they have made in protecting residents from future floods. But Bob Collington, Thames Water’s Director of Waste Water Services, admitted: “It will take us at least 25 years to solve all of the problems. I know many of you wasted time and money filling out three of four different complaint forms. We let you down.”
Mr Collington also revealed that, despite years of questioning from the council and residents, unless the water regulator – Ofwat – change their attitude to flooding there will be no cash to help the residents of H&F. Thames Water need to submit a report to Ofwat, in April 2009, to prove that work to prevent the flooding of 500 H&F homes is necessary. Even if Thames Water is successful – which is by no means guaranteed – the work will not start until 2015 at the earliest.
Residents reported that the flap valves installed by Thames Water to prevent flooding had failed and Thames Water admitted that 30 per cent of the devices did not work.
Boscombe Road resident Denise Burke was among those who came to the meeting to air frustrations at the lack of progress in preventing future flooding. She said: “Our flap valve seems to have done more harm than good as Thames Water don’t maintain it and it gets stuck causing foul back-ups. Thames Water has not followed up on the recommendations and every time it rains heavily we are frightened to death. They need to act or we will be left with a basement flat that we cannot sell or rent out.”
Angry residents also said repeated complaints to Thames Water had been lost or overlooked by the company. Thames Water officials agreed to take residents’ details but many felt it was too little, too late.
“Residents are still angry and frustrated at Thames Water’s lack of progress,” says Scrutiny Chairman, Cllr Eugenie White. “No-one is saying this is an easy problem to solve, but Thames Water has not convinced the committee or residents that they are doing enough.
“If their submission to Ofwat fails next year we are back to square one and even if it succeeds some residents’ problems won’t be solved for at least a decade. It is an absolute disgrace and Thames Water has a lot of work to do before they re-build the trust they have lost with H&F residents.”
