Every day Anglian Water go to work to find new and better ways look to after your water. We're moving forward with our project in West Deeping and the wider area to reduce surface water flows and provide enhanced flood resilience to the community. We know that no one wants to see flooding in their village.  That’s why you will see our teams in West Deeping working with the community over the coming weeks and months.

 

By working closely with the community and completing in-depth sewer surveys, Anglian Water has identified West Deeping as a village affected by possible infiltration.  Infiltration is where rainwater and ground surface water enters the foul sewer which should only be for wastewater from properties.  Along with an excess of surface water connections causing flooding to roads and properties.

What we’ve done so far

So far, we've fully cleaned and completed a CCTV survey of the sewers in West Deeping, including customers private gutter pipes. The cleaning we've completed will help prevent blockages caused by unflushable material, such as wet wipes and oil from the kitchen. Blockages can impact drainage of the sewers in the community and can be very disruptive to the community.

 

We’ve found that there is a large amount of surface water entering the foul-only sewer.  Equating to over 70 tanker loads per year. This means that West Deeping is particularly affected during periods of heavy rainfall.  By moving these surface water connections, we can mitigate the risk of future flooding.

 

Anglian Water has been working closely with the Lead Local Flood Authority, Lincolnshire County Council, to ensure that the council owned gulleys don't impact the sewers during heavy rainfall. We’ve also been working with local residents to understand the needs of the community.

 

To help protect the village during the highest period of heavy rainfall this winter we installed a pump which helped to protect the community and local environment. We've already completed improvements at the pumping station to prevent river water from entering that sewer system when the river is high.

 

Our next steps 

 

We'll continue working with West Deeping residents to remove surface water connections into the sewer.  We’ll be providing some properties with a water butt which will positively reduce their water consumption and bills. We'll construct local soakaways and be putting in place property level mitigation.  Any customers who may be impacted have already spoken with our teams. 

How you can help

Our teams work tirelessly across the region to help keep our sewer networks clear.  Every year, we clear around 40,000 blockages from our sewers alone.  That’s one every 15 minutes! Even more shockingly, 80% of these blockages are completely avoidable, but cause more pollutions in the environment than anything else.

 

Find out more about how you can help prevent pollutions by making small changes in your kitchen and bathroom.  Read more on the work Anglian Water is doing through its Keep it Clear programme.