Southern Water and the drainage along the north boundary

On the 16th January my wife happened to notice someone in a high visibility vest and hard hat on the landscaped area, so we went out to find out what was going on. The guy was from Southern Water, and he had some interesting things to say. It seems that where the park and leisure center are now there used to be a lake or reservoir, with a stream running out of it down what is now the north boundary of the estate. The lake dried up and was filled in, but the stream should still be there. In some places there is a pipe, but in others its missing or the ditch has been filled in. The details are lost to history, and its all a bit unclear. In addition the storm drainage from the houses on Serpentine that back onto the estate feed into this stream. As a result some of those gardens are getting very boggy, and there is a risk of subsidence for the houses.

Southern Water want to rectify this by digging a ditch 1 meter deep and 1 meter wide along the north boundary, similar to the existing ditch on the south boundary. They knew that Holdings & Management (Solitaire) Ltd own the land, but they were not responding to queries. We put them in touch with Hannah Forrest of FirstPort.

On 21st February Ray Marsh of PLRA, Hannah Forrest of First Port and an engineer from Southern Water met to look at the problem. It seems that the ditch was filled in by Redrow when the estate was built, and therefore the remediation is going to be in two parts. The part of the ditch that was filled in by Redrow will have to be dug at the expense of the current landowner (i.e. H&M (Solitaire)), while the lower part will have to be done by Southern Water.

Obviously the bill for repairing the ditch should be paid by Redrow, as they were responsible for the original damage. However we are concerned that H&M (Solitaire) and FirstPort may push the bill on to us. We will make it clear to FirstPort that the repair of damage done by the original contractor is not the responsibility of the residents.