Keith Kondakor sadly knows a lot about flooding and overloaded sewers from decades of going around Weddington before, during and after major rainfall events. In his first winter as Borough councillor he attended, as 6 homes were flooded on Weddington Road, just before Christmas 2012. Those homes are now protected by a large balancing pond but further risks are coming due to climate change and poorly designed developments.
Winter 2023/4 had extra flooding at Church Lane and on Weddington Road, due to the impact of new developments. Over last winter, St James Church would get cut off after even modest rain, and two homes adjacent to the Barratt’s development were flooded, due to that development burying a historic culvert. Keith Kondakor has spent 13 years attending every major rainfall event in Weddington and knew things had changed. With help from the local Neighbourhood Watch and the flood team at Warwickshire County Council, progress has been made on two problems. Firstly, the culvert that takes water from the ditch and church car-park was mostly blocked and needed realigning under a nearby garden in Church Lane. After the work, funded by WCC, the area now drains, even during heavy rain. Secondly, the issues off the Weddington road have been reduced after a buried entrance to the culvert that originally drained the fields, has been dug out. That had been lost when Barratts raised the ground levels for the St James Gate housing development.
The bigger flooding issues from the river need storage and attenuation work across the river catchment area. There was a great proposal to hold back a significant volume with new storage areas in Camp Hill which would have delayed the flow going into the Town Centre and then onto Weddington. That cannot stop the flooding but would have made it slower and smaller. It was a great project but sadly the project was sabotaged by the Borough Council in 2022 when it was under Conservative control.
We were also due to get a vital upgrade to our sewer network that was being planned in 2021, for construction in 2023. Sadly, Severn Trent Water quietly halted these projects in 2022, just after the previous MP had announced the good news. We now have serious problems in the Church Lane area with some homes needing non-return valves to block them off from the sewers after heavy rain and considerable sewage discharges into the river Anker from the pumping station. It seems that some new plans are now being produced, to look at the Church Lane problems but it is uncertain if the pumping station and onward sewers will ever get upgraded. The promises at the 27th February County Council scrutiny meeting from Severn Trent were vague and lacked timescales. Keith will carry on fighting to get all the upgrades needed.
