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Flooding at Wick Cottage, Wick Lane, Downton

We moved into Wick Cottage 10 years ago and have really enjoyed living here but we are not sure how sustainable it is.  For the past three or four years, it has been increasingly close to flooding.  I say that, but I didn't concentrate on taking photos or video in the past so I have no record of whether it is getting better or worse.  With that in mind, I thought I would create a record here so that I can compare future years against it.

There are two main issues at play; firstly, the fact that ground water seems to be rising above the ground and secondly - probably caused by the first - the sewers can't cope.

Causes

I don't think anyone could ever be certain, but I think the flooding has been caused by a combination of climate change and development.  When we first moved in the West Wick estate was just being completed.  People were moving in and everyone was happy.  Until it rained hard. 

When it got really wet, the new manhole in the middle of Wick Lane over flowed and sewage, including paper, flowed out across the road.

I can only guess that the developers tapped into a sewage system designed to serve the handful of houses up Wick Lane and that the pipes were overwhelmed.  That certainly seems logical.

West Wick - 2014

Bishopsmead

A few years later, in 2017, Bishopsmead's construction began.  There were obvious concerns that the sewers would be even further overwhelmed but they appeared to be doing some fairly major work to the system right at the west end of Wick Lane.  You can tell exactly where as there is still a significant trough in the road.  Whatever they did didn't seem to ease the pressure.  I guess if you only upgrade the final section (plus add even more to the system at that point), all the pipe up to that level is still under the same pressure it had been in the past.

Earlier this year, when the water level was high, sewage lorries were actively emptying the pipes further along Wick Lane.  This brought sime respite but cannot be a sustainable practice in the longer term.

Wick Cottage, 1st March 2024

Wick Cottage - 2nd March

This morning, our last inspection chamber before it meets the main sewer was overflowing.  Given that pressure build up happened overnight, the pressure had to be coming from the mains not from us.  As the "water" was flowing into the ditch, I gave Wessex Water a call.

I explained what I believed the situation to be, that the sewer was backed up and the only realistic solution would be for them to send tankers.  To be fair to them, they were worried about the potential pollution.  They sent someone around within two hours.  He tested the outpouring from the inspection chamber and said that the levels of amonia were low enough that it didn't count as pollution.

So, its great news that we are not discharging raw sewage into the water course, but we still can't use the downstairs loo and the sinks are now clogging up as well.  It's pretty much at the stage where downstairs plumbing is out of action.  The chap from Wessex Water had no news on when, or if, tankers might come in to alleviate pressure on the system.

But the fact that what was coming out of our inspection chamber was clean enough to not be a pollutant strongly suggests that the entire sewer has been inundated by ground water.  How on earth do you fix that??

Wick Cottage - 11 March 2024

I was trying to think about when we first noticed the downstairs loo not working as it should this time round.  That's always the first sign that things aren't as the should be.  The downstairs loo doesn't flush properly.  When that happens, it is barely used at all.  Eventually, however, when the sewers fill up enough, the loo simply doesn't flush.  It just fills the bowl.  That is a sure fire sign to stop using it at all!  Most of the time this happens, the water recedes enough that it all resolves itself so, typically, we do nothing at the first signs of trouble to see what will happen. 

With that in mind, I would guess we started to notice it was happening again during the last full week of February.  I think it was the 21st.  Today, 19 days later, the water level in the loo bowl is approximately where it should be and our manhole stopped jetting yesterday.  Obviously this is great news.  Things are on the mend.  Just fingers crossed that we get a bit of dry weather and it resolves itself fully and soon!

The dry weather is really important.  We need the water table to go down for anything to get better.  Over the last couple of weeks, I have called Wessex Water on three occaisions.  I was hoping that the calls might stimulate them to pumping out the system with their tankers as they did so much of earlier in the year.  The tankers never arrived but the manhole on the corner of Wick Lane and West Wick - the smelly one - dried up a few days ago while ours carried on spouting forth. 

Now that made no sense to me.  We are further "upstream" of the manhole of Wick Lane and West Wick.  If that was dry, we should be draining freely but obviously we weren't.  In between us is a pumping station.  I'm nt sure how it all connects but my guess was that it could have been the issue.  So I made my third call into Wessex Water on Friday 8th. 

Later in the day, I got a call back from a chap who had been working on, or managing, the drains in and around Downton since we moved to the village 20 years ago.  What he said was really interesting.  In essence it was "Good luck!"  There is nothing really that Wessex Water can or will do.  The sewers are inundated by water from the high water table.  Trying to fight the water table using tankers is a mugs game.  Firstly, it only makes a tiny and temporary difference before the water table balances out and secondly it is an expensive waste of time.  The tankers that were here previously had been pumping out what was essentially clean ground water that had flooded the sewage network and then, because they had pulled it out of a sewer, taking the clean water to a sewage processing plant (Salisbury and therefore upstream of Downton) overloading that instead.  It wouldn't be surprising if that water, or at least some of it, found its way back into the river and helped top up the ground water levels again.  All a bit pointless.

He also told me an interesting fact.  This is a known problem in Downton.  Its a village on a flood plain and the water meadows aren't really water meadows any more.  It happens to such an extent that there is a pumping station behind The Goat to help remove "ground water" from the sewage system and pump it into the Avon.  Apparently it is monitored by the Environment Agency so, in principle, no sewage gets pumped into the river.

So there we go.  The sewers are overpowered by the rising water table and the poo has no where to go.  On top of which, there is no obvious solution.  I guess we could store and remove our foul water by lorry.  Alternatively, the sewers could be entirely replaced and closed off from any run off so they were 100% foul water.  But that is never going to happen.  It would be too expensive.

Unless we start to see drier winters, I suppose this will just end up being the norm along Wick Lane.  How very dull!

Wick Cottage - 18th March 2024

At last!  The tide has receeded and we can use the downstairs loo again without fear!  For the first time in 26 days, the water is beneath the grid in the gulley that connects to the downstairs loo and the water height in the bowl is as you would expect and want it to be.

The gravel outside the garden door is no longer submerged.  However, I think we have had the perfect conditions for primeval life to start.  Plenty of water, but we've had that before, and also just enough warmth and sunlight so that we've got our very own algal bloom!

The water on the road is still flowing over and the tarmac is falling to bits, but it seems that, from our perspective at least, things are getting better.

With that said, I noticed that the manhole on the corner of Wick Lane and West Wick is now flooding again so perhaps we are not quite out of the woods.