Flooding In Lichfield Road Traced! Read About It Here

This is the story of the excess run off and the actions taken to find – why the drainage of the Lichfield Road had become so problematic! In early July we had some considerable flooding taking place, when the clouds burst and a lot of rainwater came down.
It caused flooding in many parts of Wednesfield including the Lichfield Road between Peacock Ave and the Lichfield Road Canal Bridge. It had been a flooding problem for some years!
What exacerbated the water and the floods that effected the homes on Lichfield Road, was also a water leak, that was reported in February to Severn Trent Water Company and regularly by a lot of other people – including me, but the company failed to act. The water created a marsh for months in the verge, and was a real hazard, for pedestrians, plus the run off started to continually run into the properties which are built at a lower height than the footpath.
Finally in the last week or so. Severn Trent agreed it was their leak and treated it. I had written about it here on all my Social Media sites.
So, we were still left with the drainage system operated by Highways. You can see the sort of problem that was happening if you look and see the example I placed with the photo of the blocked drain.
Trevor Fletcher from City Highways and his team were determined to find out what was happening in this area, they then assured me they would mount a full investigation.
Today I went down and spoke with residents, and the team, who had indeed worked out what was happening.
They traced the fault to a culvert that emptied from the highway into the canal. Except the culvert wasn’t there!
A landslip a very long-time ago apparently occurred – causing the culvert top to collapse, and the water then had nowhere to flow. The team located the culvert – dug it out and are to insert a pipe to ensure it now does the job properly. The landslip narrowed the canal, and the vegetation with shrub’s quickly taking over.
You can see this clearly on the photos showing how the team cut away the bank to locate the problem. I hope that this will now reduce the flooding on the Lichfield Road, during periods of heavy rain. Allow the highway drainage to be better distributed run off into the canal in which it was originally designed to do. Plus, with the work done by Severn Trent, turn the grass verge back to a better piece of the street highway scene. One that will not ever become a marsh again. I hope the residents are happy with the work undertaken.

Phil Bateman

Phil Bateman is Married to Mary and lives in Wednesfield North. He was a long serving local politician having served previously on the now defunct West Midlands County Council... read more

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