Wakefield gardens ‘flooded with sewage’ after heavy rain

Residents are calling for action from Yorkshire Water after their homes and gardens were flooded by a backed up pipe for the third time.
Residents of Horbury Road said the floodwater was deeper than their wellies after just a few hours of rain.Residents of Horbury Road said the floodwater was deeper than their wellies after just a few hours of rain.
Residents of Horbury Road said the floodwater was deeper than their wellies after just a few hours of rain.

Georgina Farrell, who lives on Horbury Road in Lupset, said that heavy rain on Friday night left her garden flooded with more than a foot of dirty water - which she believes came from a nearby sewer or drain.

She said: “What Yorkshire Water have said to me is that behind my garden fence is a drain and three sewers feed into that drain, so when we have the heavy rain the drain can’t cope with the flow, it just backs up.

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“It started Friday at five and it wasn’t until four o’clock Saturday afternoon that they got someone out.

“At one of the neighbours they’d been rescuing things from the summer house and the water was over the top of their wellies.

“When I got through to Yorkshire Water on Friday I said it’s not going to go away because we’re now into the winter.

“They say they’ll call you back but they don’t. You get frustrated.”

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Georgina estimates that this is the “third or fourth” time her garden has flooded in the last three months, and has called on Yorkshire Water to tackle the problem before the winter weather sets in.

Georgina said she had seen floodwater at eight houses on her street, including a retired couple who were forced to turn off their central heating overnight after the water flooded their basement and risked damaging their boiler.

Pictures, taken on Saturday morning, show tins of paint, vases and a freezer floating in several feet of dirty water in the basement of the house.

A spokesperson for Yorkshire Water confirmed that they were aware of the issue and would be using CCTV to monitor the situation in the future.

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They said: “We certainly sympathise and understand the frustration that these incidents can cause.

“We will be undertaking CCTV work shortly to see if there is a potential blockage on the system which is causing the issue.”