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Angry resident hits out at Kent County Council after flooding at his Murston home

By: Sean McPolin smcpolin@thekmgroup.co.uk

Published: 09:45, 26 September 2020

Updated: 15:09, 26 September 2020

An angry resident whose home was flooded last month has accused the council of “neglect” after drains on his road haven’t been unblocked.

Steve England’s house in Lansdown Road, Murston, was one of eight to be filled with water after flash flooding in the town.

The damage to Caroline and Steve England's house when it flooded. Picture: Caroline England

Nearby Coombe Road and Woodbury Drive were also affected by the heavy rain on August 15.

Now, just over a month since the incident, The 48-year-old is calling on Kent County Council to unblock all of the drains on his road, claiming they are “in a state”.

But Kent County Council say the cleaning was done last week.

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Mr England added: “This just show how utterly shambolic the county council and highways department are.

“Their quote about how no drains could cope with that amount of rain is utterly clueless.

Steve England home in Lansdown Road, Murstone was affected by the heavy rain in August. Picture: John Nurden

“If all the drains, gullies and soakaways were kept clear they would have a much better chance of coping.

Emergency services had to be called in to help as a number of homes were evacuated following the downpour.

In one house a child was left stranded upstairs and in another an elderly woman with dementia was stuck in her home.

The electrical engineer was at his home with his wife Caroline and daughter Rhiannon, 20, when rainwater started gushing in through their front door last month.

He said: “We had the same thing happen in May last year and only just got the house back to normal. It had taken about nine to 10 months.

Steve England says some of the drains in his road are still blocked. Picture: Steve England

“And then the same thing has happened again.

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Mr England explained it only took around half an hour for his home to be left under water.

Kent County Council says it recently cleaned some of the drains in Lansdown Road.

A spokesman said: “We were aware of the flooding in Sittingbourne and our officers worked alongside the fire service to keep water levels to a minimum.

“The extensive rainfall experienced at that time far exceeds what the drainage system can cope with.

“We appreciate the harm flooding causes and investigated all enquires received around public drains and roads and we are carrying out a full CCTV inspection of the drains in Lansdown Road and recently carried out cleansing for those that required it last week.

“We also plan to commission an assessment of the existing flood risk to Lansdown Road and Coombe Drive areas.

“Following this review, an outline assessment of options to improve the standard of protection against surface water flooding is required to see what we could do to reduce flood risk in the future.

“We regularly inspect and clean our network of around 70,000 surface drains. Residents can report concerns at kent.gov.uk/highways”

Read more: All the latest news from Sittingbourne

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