10 Nov Essex County Council pledge £250k to combathighways flooding
Blocked drains on the highway are to be tackled thanks to a dedicated £250,000 investment from Essex County Council (ECC).
The money will pay for an additional gully cleansing machine to target flooding issues caused by blockages on highway gullies.
Essex County Council already clears 90,000 gullies each year along the key routes in Essex.
In addition, the Council also tackles 20,000 local hotspots using historic knowledge of problem areas where silt and debris can build up. Ad-hoc cleanses at sites reported as an issue through our online tool are done in addition to figures above.
As part of the new investment, crews will work closely with the ECC Flood Management Team to target flooding hotspots on the highway. They aim to cleanse an additional 30,000 gullies annually.
Cllr Eddie Johnson, Essex County Council Cabinet Member for Highways and Transport, said: “We understand that flooding on roads and underpasses can be very frustrating for members of the public.
“This team will use local and historical knowledge of flooding hotspots to target areas where we have the power to fix them.
“Flooding is often a complex issue which is affected by a number of factors the Council cannot control – i.e. blocked private ditches, overloaded sewers and extreme weather conditions.
“But we want to ensure that, where we can, we are doing everything in our powers to alleviate this issue.”
The Council is the process of creating a detailed map of the gullies across the county to help digitise knowledge of flooding hotspots to help inform future work.
