Development concerns as sewage fills garden

A family whose garden flooded with sewage have raised concerns over the impact of a nearby house building on the area's sewer network.

In June, a shared drain at the end of Emily Golding's garden repeatedly overflowed.

Severn Trent Water sent in clean-up teams who cleared the drains and put cameras down to try to look for any longer term problems, but the Golding family have called these "sticking plaster measures".

Golding said: "It's been awful, we bought this house so that we could entertain in the garden and give our kids the childhood that we would have loved to have had, and we've not been able to do that this summer."

She continued: "It's been over a month now since we had the first incident and we're still not feeling particularly confident about using the garden, despite there being a professional clean-up."

More than 100 new homes have been built up the road and Golding is worried not enough thought has been put into whether the drains in the area can cope.

"There's 3,100 planned or already being built at the minute within the Keresley area as part of the Coventry local plan, and there are various different planning applications going in for further housing as well, which is a very real concern."

Her fears are shared by Merle Gering, who is the chairman of Keep Our Greenbelt Green and has spent the last decade campaigning against the planned developments in Keresley.

"We've been telling the council since 2010. I was looking at my old papers, and we were telling them, there's raw sewage floating down Watery Lane.

"That was before all the houses were built. There were already problems here with the pipes and they weren't adequate."

Coventry City Council told the BBC it did not think the new housing development had an impact on the issue.

Golding said she and her neighbours wanted the water company, council and developers to meet with them to discuss the sewage system in the area.

"We've had various different engineers come out with maps and say well that's not where it's supposed to be. So, I think first of all we need to get that map and actually understand what's going on and understand what the current capacity is and how that can be improved."

A spokesperson for Vistry, the developers of nearby The Meadow, said: "We understand the concerns that have been raised by residents and take them seriously."

"Any connection to the public sewer network is determined by Severn Trent Water", the firm said, adding: "All drainage designs for the development have been completed in accordance with current standards.

"As such, we are confident that the sewer network serving the development has been designed with sufficient capacity."

A Severn Trent Water spokesperson said: "We absolutely appreciate the distress sewer flooding can cause, which is why we acted immediately to arrange a clean up and investigation of the sewer, which found roots to be the cause of this blockage.

"We have since cleared the roots and we're continuing our investigations to ensure there are no other issues, with Keresley also included in our future growth plans."

The BBC understands the area's MP, Taiwo Owatemi, has organised a meeting with locals to discuss the issue, to be held at St Thomas' Church on Tamworth Road on Thursday evening, starting at 1700 BST.

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