Residents of Underlane and Cot Hill in Plympton have been venting their anger after another rupture to the water main in Cot Hill led to flooding in their garages and cellars for the umpteenth time in recent years.
The latest incident took place on June 8 when thousands of gallons of water came cascading down the hill after the main ruptured on Cot Hill near its junction with Merafield Close.
Andrew Hill lives in the area and stood as an Independent candidate in the May local elections. He said:
“A number of residents came to see me asking for help on the evening of the incident.
“Several properties on the corner of Underlane and Cot Hill had suffered water ingress to garages and cellars and many of the residents were quite angry as this is now happening with unacceptable regularity.
“I have traced earlier incidents of the water mains rupturing on Cot Hill in February 2012, August 2016 and March 2018 and now this latest incident in June 2021. There was also a rupture of the foul water sewer in October 2015.
“During the incident in 2018 the fire service had to set up booms in the road to try and divert the water and the latest incident is the worst I’ve ever seen it – the drains were just no match for the volume of water and the speed of its flow.”
Mr Hill is calling for the road camber to be adjusted, drainage improved and for a thorough review to be done of the state of underground pipework in the road.
He added:
“This requires a two pronged approach involving the City Council and South West Water. SWW needs to look at replacing the pipework in this road rather than patch repairs, the council needs to look at the road camber which does not seem to disperse water properly down Cot Hill and the drains need to be improved to mitigate against these types of incidents.
“Following one of the previous ruptures which also saw water ingress affect residents in Dudley Road, a large double drain was put in the road just above the Dudley Road junction. In this latest incident that double drain was effective in preventing water entering into Dudley Road. We need similar mitigation measures put in place for Underlane.”
Another resident blamed the ruptures on the volume of heavy goods vehicles using Cot Hill. She said:
“The road was never designed to take heavy goods vehicles, but the largest ones are diverted up Cot Hill because they cannot get under the disused railway bridge on the embankment! This will keep on happening until heavy goods vehicles are stopped from using it!”
(Story courtesy of Plympton Podcast)
