Sewage and flooding

The Randalls Road car park is prone to quite extensive flooding during heavy or prolonged periods of rain. This is due to several reasons including a combined sewage outflow that discharges into the car park when under stress from large volumes of rain water.  

This outflow works as it was designed to do but, instead of discharging into a water course as is usual, it deposits in an area that sees school children, commuters, shoppers and dog walkers passing through daily. This puts people and animal health at risk from harmful bacteria and viruses spread from the untreated sewage and damages the enviroment.

Now, a new development is proposed and with the number of properties connecting to the sewage system potentially increasing, this issue can only escalate. 

SuDs (Sustainable Drainage systems) have been mentioned to alleviate the problem, but they are for surface rain water and not designed to handle water contaminated with raw, untreated sewage, solid waste and used sanitary products. 

To mitigate the current sewage issue, SuDS may help. However, with an increased volume of waste due to a potential increase in people of the size of a small village in an area the size of four to five football pitches, SuDS alone may not be the answer.