Blocked drains and flooded streets have once again sparked frustration at council level – with Alderman Mark Baxter hitting out at what he described as the “annual autumn ritual” of overflowing gullies and rising floodwater across the borough.
Addressing acting divisional roads manager for the Southern Division, Cindy Noble, the DUP representative for Lagan River commented: “It’s a question that I had last year, and probably the year before as well.
“Your annual report talks about gully emptying ‘once annually’. We have this problem every autumn [when], as an elected representative, my phone starts to ring about gullies being full with leaves, particularly in Waringstown and Donaghcloney, the area that I represent.
“And then when you have a spell of rain, like we did the other day, you have the flooding in terms of that.
“So, when you’re inspecting the gullies, is that done at a particular time throughout the year, or is there extra resources put into emptying gullies at autumn time, whenever the leaves are probably an added problem? Is there a specific different time that you do that as well?”
The senior Department for Infrastructure (DfI) Roads representative replied: “The Department aims to inspect and, where necessary, clean all our gullies once a year, and obviously given the level of the infrastructure that we have across the borough, it’s not possible to always time that most effectively.
“If you put a request in through the online reporting system that there is a particular issue with a gully, that’s added to the next routine schedule, at the most convenient time to do that.
“So, that’s trying to create that efficiency there. We do try to get around the whole of the network in the most efficient manner.”
Ald Baxter argued that DfI Roads should aim to empty gullies in the autumn, when there is a particular need for that: “I suppose that’s where the frustration lies, because every year it’s the same thing, you’re getting maybe two or three phone calls a week about blocked bullies because of leaves.
“Surely, now we’ve recognised it’s a problem, it shouldn’t be up to elected representatives maybe to put that through the system.
“DfI should know that it’s autumn time, there’s been heavy spells of rain, there’s leaves everywhere and gullies are blocked. Surely it should be a matter of course that every autumn it’s going to be an issue.”
The acting divisional roads manager pointed out that it would be impossible to complete such a massive task within a few weeks every year: “We have a scheduled routine maintenance which allows us to make sure that we are on the network to be able to empty the gullies at least once a year.
“Every gully, essentially, is inspected and emptied at least once a year. But when you’re dealing with over 90,000 gullies, it’s impossible to do them all within a certain period of time before the autumn, when the leaves will fall.
“We have to develop a programme based on the resources that our contractors have, to be able to empty 90,000 gullies within a certain time period.
“You can’t do that in a matter of weeks. It’s obviously extended into a number of months, to be able to get around the whole of the network.”
