Thames Water to have daily presence in Newport Road two weeks after sewage first flooded gardens

Residents of Newport Road have been complaining of contaminated water flooding their gardens and surrounding roads, and in one instance some internal flooding, for two weeks yet say they have up until now been ignored by Thames Water who said there was nothing they could do.
Newbury town councillor Ruwan Uduwerage-Perera has been actively campaigning in the area, urging Thames Water to take action, while Newbury MP Richard Benyon was also speaking to residents of the street this morning.
Following questions from NewburyToday yesterday (Mon) afternoon, a spokeswoman for Thames Water, Sarah Sharpe, said that from today, staff would be on-site everyday doing what they could until a full clean-up operation could begin.
“The problem is that the river burst its banks at the top of the street, and the street slopes down, therefore water drains downwards into Newport Road,” she said. “River floodwater and groundwater fills up our sewers, and when they are overloaded the wastewater comes back our manholes, albeit heavily diluted as it is mostly rainwater and groundwater.
“From today we’ll be there every day to clean up, in the parts of the road where manholes are under water we’ll get staff to wear waders and use pickers to collect any debris from the sewers.
“We’ll continue this until levels drop enough for us to do a full clean-up.
“Unfortunately there is very little else we can do about the actual water as groundwater levels are so high.
“Once levels reduce we can use CCTV to look along the sewer and check for blockages and see what condition it is in, but for the moment we cannot do anything as tankers will not solve the issue as there is simply too much water.
“If you used a tanker it would make little difference – as fast as we could remove the water it would reappear again.
“This is a tough message but we are working incredibly hard to assist customers, for example we have five times as many tankers working across the region than normal, our staff our working 24-hours a day, seven days a week and our contractors are completing twice as many jobs a day than normal.”
Following the update, Newport Road resident Jo Berridge said: “It’s certainly a start.
“We wanted someone to take responsibility and say we are going to help you.
“It’s a good first move for them to take.”
West Berkshire Council says that sewers are the responsibility of Thames Water and advice can be found on the Thames Water website www.thameswater.co.uk/help-and-advice/9782.htm
Health advice on flooded sewers is available from Public Health England here www.hpa.org.uk/webc/HPAwebFile/HPAweb_C/1317140405287
and here
www.hpa.org.uk/web/HPAweb&HPAwebStandard/HPAweb_C/1213686561005
However, despite sunny intervals over the weekend, those in areas badly hit by flooding are being warned that more rain is expected today (Tues).
The Met Office has forecast further showers from 9am to 6pm tomorrow, with winds reaching up to 22mph in the early hours of the morning.
The weekend’s dry weather has caused river levels to drop.
On Saturday, the River Kennet broke record levels in both Newbury and Theale, reaching 1.48m and 1.61m respectively, and also the River Lambourn in Shaw, at 0.66m but this morning had reduced to 1.41m, 1.43m and 0.62m.
The River Lambourn had also reduced from 1.61m to 1.55m in Eastbury.
However, while most of Wednesday is set to be dry, however downpours are expected from midnight to 6pm on Thursday, which could cause river levels to rise once again.
Don’t forget to keep us updated of how the flooding is where you are.
You can email your pictures to reporter Ellis Barker or John Herring at ellis.barker@newburynews.co.uk or john.herring@newburynews.co.uk