Cleaning up the mud

Every time there's a cloudburst in Belper, the heavy rain overwhelms the sewers in Bridge Street in Belper.  Belper was a much smaller place when the sewers were first installed. Our cellar door is below street level, there's a drain gully beside the door. This gully is on approximately the same level as the top of the sewer in the street outside. Normally this is not a problem, except when there's a cloudburst. The heavy rainfall overwhelms the capacity of the sewer to take away the water and it backs up into our cellar drain gully. This often floods the area outside our cellar door, which then floods the cellar.

We've raised this with Severn Trent, the authority responsible for maintaining the sewer system. They've fitted a blocking valve in our drain gully to stop the backflow. This definitely helps in reducing the incidents, but it has not cured the problem. We still get flooding. Even six months or so, a different team from Severn Trent appears, pokes around in the drain system, takes another video of the drains and then disappears without trace after promising to raise the issue with their supervisor.

The problem is that every time there's flood, soil is washed into the area around the cellar door to form a layer on the stone path. The water has found a new route from the sewer and it's robbing the soil from somewhere.  Each year we have the task of cleaning the mud from the path.

Debris and mud after a flooding

 Positioning the wheelbarrow

 Scraping up the mud and debris

 One year's load of mud removed

After pressure washing the flag stones.