Please find below, the latest email I have received from Thames Water regarding the recent flooding at Ogbourne St Andrew:
Dear Mr Kruger
Thank you for your emails on behalf of your constituents, who have contacted you in relation to the recent flooding in Ogbourne St Andrew. I can fully understand how unpleasant this is for your constituents to face and for the strength of feeling on this matter for which I am very sorry.
I note that you are receiving a lot of correspondence from your constituents in relation to this matter, so I hope it will be helpful to provide you with our answers to some questions.
It’s important to begin by explaining, we have experienced the wettest winter on record, with 10 named storms to date. Ground water has been at an all-time high, resulting in widespread flooding. In January 2024 the River Kennet burst its banks following heavy rainfall. We deployed tankers during this time to help reduce the additional flows entering our networks until the river levels subsided. We also supported the residents where we feasibly could.
Whilst we’ll continue to do all we can and provide support to residents and businesses when flooding occurs, we’re not responsible for the burst riverbanks, we’re unable to prevent this or mitigate against this in the future. We’d advise all residents and businesses to contact their local Council should there be any further questions relating to this.
In the meantime, we’ve answered some additional questions which have been raised to us.
Can you please confirm the timing, nature and extent of any long-term remediation, survey or related works that are planned to take place to the Marlborough Sewerage system under PR24 and AMP8?
An upgrade is planned for Marlborough Sewage Treatment Works (STW). This will improve its ability to treat the volumes of incoming sewage, reducing the need for untreated discharges in wet weather. The scheme is due to complete in 2026.
Any sewer investigations (and resultant sewer cleaning) to remove any blockages.
I think it is important to explain, we have been unable to find any evidence of a blockage or defect in our wastewater assets which could be contributing to the problem. We believe there is currently a source of water infiltration into the sewer, which is causing the flooding. We’ve therefore raised an infiltration investigation under reference SA-1034133 to try and understand how the excess water is getting into the sewer so we can take the necessary actions to prevent this from happening. This work is currently awaiting scheduling. However, we’ll continue use our tankers to keep the flows under control in the meantime.
This location is also on our yearly Planned Maintenance Programme. This entails completing a proactive camera survey and clean of the sewer network to ensure the network is serviceable/operational.
Ongoing investigations and remediation of priority infiltration sources
We're investigating the impact of groundwater on the sewer network in this area. This will help inform our long-term planning. Please visit our website, www.thameswater.co.uk to see our Groundwater Impacted System Management Plan (GISMP) for Marlborough.
We expect this location to meet all government targets for storm overflows by 2030 - 2035. Once again. for more information around this please visit our website.
Identifying and taking actions to minimise where surface water ponding may be inundating manholes.
Whilst we can support with flooding, we can only do this by using a multi-agency approach; we are not responsible for ponding and advise constituents go to Highways.
