Bedford Borough Council is “wasting resources” by visiting blocked drains that only have leaves over the grate, a meeting heard.
Iain Booth, highways service manager, told last week’s Rural Affairs Committee (24 July) that there’s “a lot of misconception” of when gullies are blocked.
“In fact, it’s often just a simple case of some leaves covering the grate”, he said. “That costs us quite a lot of time and energy because we’ll send the gully motor out which could have been going elsewhere.”
Mr Booth added that the council is working with parish councils to advise when a gully/drain is blocked or not.
The committee heard that other problems appear to show that the drains are blocked.
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“A lot of the time it’s actually maintenance of the surface water sewer by Anglian Water, so we have a struggle there,” Mr Booth said. “In the rural network there’s a lot that goes into roadside ditches, these are generally the landowners’ responsibility.
“We are working with lots of landowners to make sure that they are keeping on top of excavating their ditches so that our gullies work properly. If roadside ditches aren’t clear then our gulleys have nowhere to displace the water to.”
The committee heard that the council is returning to a cyclical approach to gully maintenance.
Mr Booth said: “The problem we were having previously was we were spending so much time being reactive driving from one place to another to another, rather than trying to have a systematic approach and working through it, which I think, in the end, makes it quicker.
“Because we’re literally getting through so much work rather than just spending so much time driving around, which is really working wonders.”
Councillor Nicola Gribble (Independent, Renhold & Ravensden) said: “It gives me great joy that we’re now on a programme of planned maintenance.
“You cannot underestimate the good it does.”
Cllr Gribble asked if a promotion could be carried out for autumn/winter to explain how the gullies are maintained.
