Well, what has convinced me to update this blog is that I am finally totally fed up with the appalling lack of responsibility of the current occupants towards dealing with their dust (not their problem), waste wrecking the drains (not their problem), water off the hardstanding (their neighbours problem).
We have dust all over our property and a totally wrecked soakaway because all of the waste which is dragged out on the drive is left to go into the drains and soakaways. This totally filled the pipes and then inevitably the drainage system was wrecked. No surprise here. The drain on the main drive was emptied for years using a diesel pump.
This is what we had to put up with for years.
What was truly shocking about this is that for 6 years we have had threatening letters to reopen a pipe from the industrial estate into our septic tank so they could BACKFLOW water from the failed drainage system onto our lower lying land.
In 2009 we realised, after our field and orchard went under water, that we were connected into the far end of the drainage system. We knew my grandmother at 'The Oaks' was having serious flooding issues, but thought we were unaffected. What a shock we had when we checked the old well in our orchard and found it connected to the industrial estate drainage system.
SP Holding checked the pipework and found a direct link from the septic tank but no other connections.
Whilst checking the pipework it rained. I had put a plug in the pipework in the old well (now a manhole) while we drained this old well of sewage. The water pressure was so strong it blasted the mortar from around the plug, so we had one option, to plug it the other side, which luckily stopped it going into the septic tank but left us with a sealed septic tank and flooded land.
Luckily the neighbouring farmer showed how great people can be and his brother dug all of the water course on his land and then the water course on our land to get our ditch moving to remove this water.
We disconnected the septic tank from the industrial estate drainage system but left the manhole connected. Not a good move. Next time it rained our orchard was flooded with filthy yard water. At the time we were re-fencing the field. Within 10 minutes the water made the gateway inaccessible. The trailer the fencing contractor was using had to be towed out by the tractor.
Next stage had to be to smash the pipe to the yard. This we did.
Then the threatening letters started telling us we had to re-instate this pipe. So the occupants of the industrial estate were not prepared to put in new drainage to replace the drainage they wrecked, which drained the water to the south west corner where it had always gone. No. We were to reconnect a pipe leading to our septic tank to take filthy water from 1.86 hectares.
I dug the ground exposing the four inch pipe which led from the manhole to our septic tank and Built-Off Site (now renamed the Darwin Group), the company sending the letters, were given the chance to check it. Did they? No.
So then we had a lull from 2012 to 2015 when the next letter came. This time from Shawbury Industrial Estate Management, of which ALL of the companies in this industrial estate are part of. This said that the current drainage problem:
'...has been exacerbated due to damage caused by yourself to the main drainage run for the site. I believe this has been covered in correspondence between Built Offsite Limited's solicitors and your own. SIEMCO will now be reviewing this correspondence and passing this to its own solicitors to determine what redress, financial or otherwise they will seek from you as a result of your action'.
The solicitors letter they referred to was from 2011 and stated we had damaged their drainage. Our solicitor replied that no, actually we clearly drained their way. We have a four inch pipe entering the manhole from our septic tank with a lower, six inch pipe exiting. Pretty clear isn't it. So our solicitor responded that:-
'We therefore do not consider that your client has any claim against our client when it is clear that polluted water from your client’s site does not drain across our client’s property. Should your client continue to assert that there is a right of drainage over our client’s property, then we would suggest that the appropriate way of dealing with the matter would be for a formal drainage survey to be carried out to establish the direction of the drainage flow and what the causes of any problems in the drainage system are.
BUT then I was threatened that if I put more piles of their muck on their drive 'It would be in my f***ing house next time' and the waste was bulldozed back against the fence on our land.
So what we have now is a completely wrecked soakaway, because the gully leads to a soakaway which is so full of thick grey gunge from off the drive it will have to be replaced.
So how have the companies in the industrial estate dealt with this? Simple. In December 2016 they resurfaced the drive under the auspices again of Shawbury Industrial Estate Management, of which ALL have a Director represented.
Their answer was to raise the tarmac past our gully and manhole to force the water off the drive to this failed soakaway. Have they offered to put in new drainage? NO.
So I have had to bund around the gully and clear a channel up the inside of their new tarmac to drain the filthy water past our land. This channel continuously fills with muck because they are STILL not sweeping the muck off the drive. Incidentally the gully to the right of this picture is a different gully which was connected to the drainage system further down. Needless to say no water now drains away from it, which is why it is bunded off.
This is the current state of the gully. It's under this toffee like substance. This incidentally dries totally white.
Do we ever see a road sweeper? NO.
We have dust all over our property and a totally wrecked soakaway because all of the waste which is dragged out on the drive is left to go into the drains and soakaways. This totally filled the pipes and then inevitably the drainage system was wrecked. No surprise here. The drain on the main drive was emptied for years using a diesel pump.
This is what we had to put up with for years.
What was truly shocking about this is that for 6 years we have had threatening letters to reopen a pipe from the industrial estate into our septic tank so they could BACKFLOW water from the failed drainage system onto our lower lying land.
In 2009 we realised, after our field and orchard went under water, that we were connected into the far end of the drainage system. We knew my grandmother at 'The Oaks' was having serious flooding issues, but thought we were unaffected. What a shock we had when we checked the old well in our orchard and found it connected to the industrial estate drainage system.
Whilst checking the pipework it rained. I had put a plug in the pipework in the old well (now a manhole) while we drained this old well of sewage. The water pressure was so strong it blasted the mortar from around the plug, so we had one option, to plug it the other side, which luckily stopped it going into the septic tank but left us with a sealed septic tank and flooded land.
Luckily the neighbouring farmer showed how great people can be and his brother dug all of the water course on his land and then the water course on our land to get our ditch moving to remove this water.
We disconnected the septic tank from the industrial estate drainage system but left the manhole connected. Not a good move. Next time it rained our orchard was flooded with filthy yard water. At the time we were re-fencing the field. Within 10 minutes the water made the gateway inaccessible. The trailer the fencing contractor was using had to be towed out by the tractor.
Next stage had to be to smash the pipe to the yard. This we did.
Then the threatening letters started telling us we had to re-instate this pipe. So the occupants of the industrial estate were not prepared to put in new drainage to replace the drainage they wrecked, which drained the water to the south west corner where it had always gone. No. We were to reconnect a pipe leading to our septic tank to take filthy water from 1.86 hectares.
I dug the ground exposing the four inch pipe which led from the manhole to our septic tank and Built-Off Site (now renamed the Darwin Group), the company sending the letters, were given the chance to check it. Did they? No.
So then we had a lull from 2012 to 2015 when the next letter came. This time from Shawbury Industrial Estate Management, of which ALL of the companies in this industrial estate are part of. This said that the current drainage problem:
'...has been exacerbated due to damage caused by yourself to the main drainage run for the site. I believe this has been covered in correspondence between Built Offsite Limited's solicitors and your own. SIEMCO will now be reviewing this correspondence and passing this to its own solicitors to determine what redress, financial or otherwise they will seek from you as a result of your action'.
The solicitors letter they referred to was from 2011 and stated we had damaged their drainage. Our solicitor replied that no, actually we clearly drained their way. We have a four inch pipe entering the manhole from our septic tank with a lower, six inch pipe exiting. Pretty clear isn't it. So our solicitor responded that:-
'We therefore do not consider that your client has any claim against our client when it is clear that polluted water from your client’s site does not drain across our client’s property. Should your client continue to assert that there is a right of drainage over our client’s property, then we would suggest that the appropriate way of dealing with the matter would be for a formal drainage survey to be carried out to establish the direction of the drainage flow and what the causes of any problems in the drainage system are.
We would be grateful if
you could confirm that your client would be prepared to allow access
to their site (our client will provide seven days’ notice) for a
drainage surveyor to carry out a survey'.
No response from their solicitor whatsoever. In other words they didn't want to do a survey, it is far more fun to continuously threaten us. What kind of way is this for companies to behave?
THEN, the drain on our land just off the main driveway failed. We now had no drainage in our orchard because this had drained into the manhole which had drained across the industrial estate. So we now had filthy water draining off the main driveway straight down into the orchard.
I had been trying to keep the drain by the main driveway functioning by emptying the muck out of it and putting it on piles back on the driveway (it doesn't take any water from our land). I did this a few times - this is what I was emptying out. There was around two feet of this in the gully.
BUT then I was threatened that if I put more piles of their muck on their drive 'It would be in my f***ing house next time' and the waste was bulldozed back against the fence on our land.
So what we have now is a completely wrecked soakaway, because the gully leads to a soakaway which is so full of thick grey gunge from off the drive it will have to be replaced.
So how have the companies in the industrial estate dealt with this? Simple. In December 2016 they resurfaced the drive under the auspices again of Shawbury Industrial Estate Management, of which ALL have a Director represented.
Their answer was to raise the tarmac past our gully and manhole to force the water off the drive to this failed soakaway. Have they offered to put in new drainage? NO.
This is the current state of the gully. It's under this toffee like substance. This incidentally dries totally white.
Do we ever see a road sweeper? NO.
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