David and I have been informed by Thames Water that the cleaning out of the sewers has now been completed in Old Headington. The extent of the operation had to be extended as they found the line was heavily fatted and greased, and was heavily scaled
This should have sorted out the problems. Please let us know if anything else needs to be done
At eight o’clock last night, a big tanker lorry turned up with hoses in order to clear the manhole in St Andrews Road, at the corner of Laurel Farm Close. Thames Water has jetted the sewer at high pressure.
If you live nearby, and have been experiencing problems with either sewage or drainage, please keep David and me informed about how things are going – it would be good to know if this jetting has cleared the problem!
UPDATE! Thames Water rang me today to advise that the sewer cleaning in St Andrew’s Road is scheduled to take up to 10 days from 4 December
Anyone who has visited this site will know the frustration that many residents have felt about Thames Water — frustrations shared by both your local councillors and your Parliamentary Spokesperson, Steve Goddard. So, it’s fair to give a balanced picture. While many issues have been for too long needling local people and, in some cases, causing problems none of us would like to experience, it’s true to say staff from Thames Water have recently been jumping to it.
I say this because this morning I attended a meeting in Brookside about the continuing problem residents have there with repeated flows of sewage through the brook which gives the cul-de-sac its name. It was held in one resident’s house (thank you), had seven local householders present, and had two specialists from the Environmental Agency present, along with four from the Thames Water. For the first time, residents could feel they were talking to real people who could reply immediately to their questions. The result was not a resolution, as yet, but at least, it was an agreement on a way forward, with Thames Water promising to commission the work and report back regularly to the residents.
So, I’m not about to declare Thames Water my New Best Friend — there’s a lot of work to be done on the Brookside issue, as elsewhere. But, if what we have seen is a line of improvement which continues upwards, maybe next year they will be on my Christmas Card list!
More good news for residents living in Old Headington. Thames Water assures us that a job has been raised for their clean water side to check the ‘clinking’ metal cover in Old High Street that rattles every time a car passes over it (near North Place).
The reference number is 81119 596127.
The bent metal manhole cover near Laurel Farm Place is puzzling us as it does not seem to belong to anyone! We’re still working on how to replace that!
The slightly sunken manhole cover in the middle of St. Andrew’s Road towards the triangle with Osler Road is definitely going to be replaced, but the job is being added to the non-urgent list.
All in all we think we are making progress and, once Thames Water come and give the St Andrew’s Road foul sewer and fresh water sewer a good cleanout by the end of the month as promised, things should be on the up. There is still a strange smell being reported in Old High Street/St Andrew’s Road though, and we’re still on the case.
There will be a big meeting about the Boundary Brook contamination on Friday – more later!
NEWS OF OUR CAMPAIGN!
Brookside
David is attending a meeting with local residents and representatives of Thames Water and the Environment Agency to exchange information and monitor action taken in regard to the pollution of Boundary Brook by sewage flows.
Stoke Place / St Andrew’s Road
Thames Water sent out their network engineer to Stoke Place and St Andrews Road on Monday, he lifted the manhole covers and checked the flows in both the surface water and foul water sewers. There were no problems with blockages on Monday which was a wet day. He couldn’t find any definite evidence of a misconnection of foul water into the surface water sewer. The foul water sewer is a lot deeper than the surface water sewer. Thames Water will be cleaning the foul and surface water sewers in Stoke Place, St Andrews Road and Old High Street to try to prevent further blockages which caused the flooding in this area. This is scheduled to be done within the next month.
Stockleys Road and Saxon Way, Northway
I shall contact Thames Water further about the smells coming up from sinks in these areas, once I have authorisation from the tenants to disclose their contact details
Manhole covers in Old High St and Laurel Farm Place
It would appear that these can only be looked at when referred on from the Highways Dept so I shall contact them again with details and ask them to pass these on to Thames Water, this is an indirect route but it appears to be the correct way to get things done
Peter Claridge from Thames Water writes:
I would encourage the residents to call in to us when they have problems or
to contact our customer relations department if they want to write to us.
This will make sure that all the issues are recorded properly on our
systems and we can investigate fully. Also, if the customers write to us
we are obliged under by OFWAT to reply to them within 10 days.
I am grateful to Peter for his help thus far
Thanks to everyone who attended the area committee meeting tonight, it was good to see so many residents willing to ask questions of the representatives from Thames Water, and I am really pleased we were able to discuss our issues with them.
I mentioned the complaints procedure to follow if you feel that an issue you have reported has not been dealt with appropriately or there has been a service failure. The first thing to do is to use Thames Water’s own formal complaints procedure – click here for details
If you are unable to resolve it, you can contact the Consumer Council for Water Thames – for consumers of Thames Water, Three Valleys Water, Sutton and East Surrey. Their address is
Fourth Floor (South), High Holborn House, 52/54 High Holborn, London, WC1V 6RL
Click here for details – their services are free