Wets Hampstead

Flooding in Lymington Road 10 years ago

The West Hampstead area has been plagued by water problems over the last few months, with burst mains in West End Lane and nearby Cricklewood causing disruption to traffic and loss of supply to many of our homes. We think it’s time our area got the benefit of the Victorian water mains replacement programme, and we’ve invited representatives from Thames Water to come to our next Area Forum, provisionally scheduled for 2^nd July – but watch this space. You can come along and have your say.

This will follow on from the last Area Forum when we discussed flooding problems and lots of criticism was levelled at Camden Council for not keeping the gullies clear. We asked the Council recently about the programme of gully cleansing. Camden responded to say they do clear the gullies regularly, but went on:

 “however if a gully is covered by a car they leave it alone. This can mean that certain gullies can be left unmaintained for a number of years. For example the maintenance team went to clear the gullies of Cannon Hill in July 2012 but were only able to clear 3 of the 10 gullies. They have now, since the meeting, suspended parking on the street so that they can clean all the gullies. Other roads mentioned were Lymington Road (which had all its gullies cleaned on 16th January 2013) and Holmdale Road which had 5 of its 7 gullies cleaned on 23rd October 2012". 

We’ve also asked Camden about the effect of new developments on the drainage system in our area. They’ve told us they scrutinise all major planning applications, especially if they are within a flood risk area, but we’re not convinced that Camden are thinking enough about the cumulative impact of the many new buildings going up in our area. If you’ve got any specific concerns about flooding, you can contact Camden officer Nick Humfrey on Nick.Humfrey@camden.gov.uk.