'I need wellies to leave the house when it rains'

A man says a blocked drain on the road outside his house means he has to "wear wellies" to get out of his front gate onto the pavement when it rains.

Bob Ashworth lives on Ullswater Road, Lancaster, and said it had been a problem for the past six months.

He said he had reported it to the Love Clean Streets app, which is what Lancashire County Council uses for residents to report things like potholes and blocked drains, but added: "Every time it comes up as an item closed and nothing's been done."

Lancashire County Council, which is responsible for cleaning gullies in the city, said: "We have attended Ullswater Road on several occasions, but unfortunately our teams couldn't access gullies because of parked vehicles."

Ashworth said at times the water could be as high as four inches (10cm) and he was worried.

"In the last 10 years, where we've had what I would call a flash flood, where you get a torrential downpour, it floods right across the road, kerb to kerb, and the drains can't cope with that," he said.

"Now, if the drains are completely blocked that's going to obviously raise the water level and come into the house."

Councillor Paul Stubbins, representing Lancaster East, said the authority had moved to a "reactive" cleaning routine for the drains. But he added "the criteria they put in place are too restrictive and so real situations like we've got here at Bob's house aren't getting resolved, because it doesn't meet the criteria".

He said he had been told the authority received "multiple reports" on an issue via the Love Clean Streets app and that all but one report was closed down. Sometimes this was then also closed "because it's not meeting the criteria", he said.

Parent company of the app, Blackburn IT Services (BBITS), said: "The app enables residents to report local issues directly to the relevant authority.

"The responsibility for investigating reports, carrying out any work and marking reports as completed sits with the local authority that receives the report."

Ashworth is now calling on Lancashire County Council to take urgent action: "It just needs pumping out and I think there's other drains along the road which are in a similar state, so they need to come along and just pump the drain out really and get the water to flow again."

A council spokesman said: "We manage reports of gully blockages with a risk-based approach by triaging in the first instance and responding with reactive gully cleansing where it meets the criteria."

"We will be writing to local residents and putting up notices to inform the public when we plan to return so that we can clear these gullies."

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