Highway drain under my garden – responsibilities & ownership ??

Hive Mind Question Time! Edit: ended up long – feel free to skip to the last para if you’re not going to read all this shit.

I’m in a dip in the road. The highway gulleys drain from both directions on my side of the road and meet under an inspection cover on my boundary. The storm water then drains off at a right angle underneath my garden to the stream 2 feet beyond my property boundary.

Except it’s crappy, old clay piping which is cracked and leaking, blocks every time it rains and saturates my garden through the cracks, flowing up to the surface and running off to the stream. I’ve had to make a complete pain in the arse of myself on a bewildering number of occasions to get anything done, and I’m not happy with their current plan, which is just to replace a bit at the end – we’re still going to have road water soaking into our garden through the numerous cracks.

One line that keeps coming up is that they’re doing it ‘on my behalf’. They’ve said on a couple of occasions that they don’t have a record of the pipe, that it’s my pipe as land owner and my responsibility to maintain it.

Which sounds like utter bollocks to me. It’s clearly part of their drainage infrastructure, using the same materials, taking their water and debris and all sorts to the stream. The drainage doesn’t work without this final pipe to the stream.

But it’s getting to the stage where I might need to get legal, rather than relying on common sense and persuasion – they seem to be immune to that. Any legal resources about drainage rights and responsibilities anyone can point me towards before I get a solicitor? I’ve not found anything that quite hits the nail on the head on my google travels so far.

Cheers!

One line that keeps coming up is that they’re doing it ‘on my behalf’. They’ve said on a couple of occasions that they don’t have a record of it, that it’s my pipe as land owner and my responsibility to maintain it.

Dig down to where it enters your land and plug it with cement. Then build a damn with lots of sand bags around your garden to keep the surface water out. 😀

Failing that get busy with a spade and dig down and put some plastic pipe in. Probably easier than trying to get them to fix it.

Failing that get busy with a spade and dig down and put some plastic pipe in. Probably easier than trying to get them to fix it.

This.

It solves the problem of the drain.

Then put your efforts into seeing if someone else will pay for it, the actual cost rather than an ‘estimate’.

Any money spent on ‘legal’ could easily be a waste, and even if you won you’d still need someone to do it – in your timescale rather than theirs.

id move

Have you spoken to officials or your local ward councillor? Latter will get it fixed quicker but alas the easiest answer is to suck it up and fix it yourself as you have discovered since the recession councils really really really aren’t bothered about stuff like this anymore if they ever were.

The short answer is that it’s your drain therefore your problem. If it’s easily fixed by digging and sticking down some pipe then in the long run that’s your easiest solution. Drains under property should be picked up by conveyencing- you might have a case there!

Your pipe? If it only drains the rd then it may be the council or highway authority’s drain instalked under Highways Act powers. Surely if their drain then their duty to maintain?

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1980/66/section/100

If this is the case it’s technically an offence to interfere with it. So maybe if you are going to DIY it get a reply from the council in writing saying it is your pipe first.

Though if it was more than a few feet of work getting the council to do their job would be the ideal solution.

Is the road that is being drained adopted by the highways authority? I think the fact that they seem to have volunteered to carry out partial remedial works speaks volumes – it suggests they may believe they have responsibility for the drain. I would push harder, but you may have to prove nuisance caused by the defective drain, which would most likely involve you incurring costs/consultants fees to prove this. If you are not in any hurry, keep a photo diary to build your case. Not sure how you would prove beyond doubt that it is their responsibility though.

Councils generally don’t have records of any of their highway drains!

As has been said above if the highway is adopted then it is the highway authorities/local councils responsibility, even if it technically is your pipe. If they carry on saying its yours tell them you’re going to block it up then!!

Do you have any photos showing flooding if your land? if you do email them to the council drainage section. Councils do take this sort of thing seriously if you can prove flooding. unfortunately as it’s not flooding your house it will not be a priority.

Where is this by the way?

they are fudging because they don’t want to spend the money (which probably won’t be a lot in reality for a structural lining.

Keep going, write, don’t phone

Local Councillor, local MP and, finally, local media. The first two were enough to get my drains cleared

There was a programme on telly about 1 yr about people living near motorways. One of the had a drain running under their house that used to flood. It took them lots of effort and being on TV before highways agency did something about

Think this was the series

://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04hg23s

To be honest, if they replace the bit at the end and the water is unrestricted, it shouldn’t really come up through the cracks and come to the surface further up the pipe, least resistance is always the preferred route. Unless of course its very shallow, in which case it would be easy to repair anyway.

You could even just dig down and lay that land drainage ‘holey’ pipe above it with some gravel, any leakage would then drain via the ‘holey’ pipes. The pipe is supposedly cheaper than the gravel so just put as much in the trench as possible 🙂

Not quite the same but we’ve a drain (I think it’s a sanitary one not a road one) running under our front garden/driveway. Conveyencing showed it’s the water companies responsibility to maintain it but they have a right of access to it, it’s all in the deeds.

I’d check your deeds, there must be something in there. If there’s not then presumably they don’t have right to drain across or under the land (a lot say that your driveway for example cannot drain onto the road) so you could issue an ultimatum to them, either they fix it and formally take responsibility for it, or you’re digging it out?

If its leaking it will create a void which you garden and then your house will fall into in and then you’ll have to fight lizards with sticks stuck on them pretending to be dinosaurs and have to rescue a mute maiden in a fur bikini from being sacrificed. Well the first bit’s true. It’s their pipe if it’s not draining your property but they’ll do everything in their power to avoid fixing it. Might be easier to just knock some PE in there.

Thanks all for the input, much appreciated

irc
Your pipe? If it only drains the rd then it may be the council or highway authority’s drain instalked under Highways Act powers. Surely if their drain then their duty to maintain?

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1980/66/section/100

If this is the case it’s technically an offence to interfere with it. So maybe if you are going to DIY it get a reply from the council in writing saying it is your pipe first.

Though if it was more than a few feet of work getting the council to do their job would be the ideal solution.

Thanks for the link. Very handy. It’s 22 metres from the street to the stream. It’s a 6″ clay pipe, (the same as the 6″ clay pipes in the road drains) following the slope of the garden, buried about a foot deep under grass and flower beds. Piece of piss to come in with a mini digger and whack in a few lengths of pvc.

I’m wary of doing anything myself, because if there were any problems after that, they can say “you xxxxed with it, your problem” whereas they can’t say that at the moment. I have a feeling they’re trying to frustrate me into effing with it, at which point, they can trot that one out. “Aaaahh! You touched it last!”, playground style.

To be honest, if they replace the bit at the end and the water is unrestricted, it shouldn’t really come up through the cracks and come to the surface further up the pipe, least resistance is always the preferred route. Unless of course its very shallow, in which case it would be easy to repair anyway.

You’re right, and this is certainly their argument. Trouble is, there’s a metre or two of drop, so when it’s blocked and backed up (every time there’s heavy rain) there’s quite a head of water, and the cracks are significant.

And it is very shallow, they’re coming in to do a bit of anyway, I just want them to do a satisfactory job rather than a half-arsed bare minimum while they’re here. If I miss this opportunity, I’ll never see them again.

I’d check your deeds, there must be something in there. If there’s not then presumably they don’t have right to drain across or under the land (a lot say that your driveway for example cannot drain onto the road) so you could issue an ultimatum to them, either they fix it and formally take responsibility for it, or you’re digging it out?

Nothing in the deeds. They’re saying they don’t have a wayleave for our land so it can’t be theirs. But as above, the drainage of the whole road is reliant on the pipe to the stream under my garden and it was clearly constructed at the same time with the same materials as the stuff in the road.

Try the water authority. See who they think has ownership.

Your drain? fit a flow meter and start charging them for using it?? mebbe?