Surface Water Drainage – Midlands
With such unsettled weather this summer giving us blistering hot days followed by thunder, lightning and torrential downpours, maintaining surface water drainage systems is essential to prevent localised flooding and flash flooding.
What is surface water drainage? Whenever it rains, any storm water, run off or rainwater is collected through roof gutters and downpipes or field watercourses and road gullies. It is then channeled through the UK’s surface water drainage systems into our rivers and the sea.
Over a period of time, standard rainfall, snow and ice melt (surface water) is naturally absorbed by green land, such as soil, grass, trees and parks. Surface water is also carried away through our road gully systems and watercourses. In a country where where we are continually building new homes, our natural surface water drainage areas are reduced by property development and urbanisation.
After extreme weather and torrential downpours, our natural ground collection systems are often already saturated and water run off increases. Unless road gullies are regularly maintained and cleared of tree roots and debris, they too can become blocked and encourage water levels to rise.
Watercourses on the side of roads, country lanes and fields also need regular dredging and clearing in order for them to work efficiently and carry surface water away.
When surface water drainage systems aren’t maintained properly and excess water has nowhere to go, flash flooding can occur and devastate local communities, homes, livelihoods and travel networks.
When any type of flooding occurs it leads to chaos and disruption, to help prevent or limit the devastation caused by flooding maintaining surface water drainage systems is often the first course of action.
With over 28 years’ experience within the drainage industry, Wilkinson Environmental offer a range of flood prevention services from cleaning road gullies, watercourse maintenance and drainage repairs. If you are concerned about the risk of flash flooding in the Midlands we also offer CCTV drain surveys, root cutting, sewer cleaning and sewer repair services. We also have insurance advisers on hand in the event of flooding occurring.