Water rates - surface water drainage

[David J]

My water rates invoice shows an (admittedly small) additional charge for what is called 'surface water drainage' which is included in the sewerage charge as 'foul & surface'.

Enquiries revealed that this was a charge for rain water running from my drive onto the road. They admitted that they have no idea whether it does, or not. In effect everybody is charged unless they can successfully challenge the charge, in which case one of their surveyors will have been to the property to establish the facts. I reckon that my drive is level, with just a slope on the public pavement onto the road level.

Question is: How can it be determined (unless it is raining) if a level drive passes rain water onto the road? On both sides of my drive are lawns, and surface water will also drain onto that. As the drive is brickweave some of the rain will soak though the gaps. Many of my neighbour's drives actually slope away from the road.

Isn't this just a big con by the Water Companies?

David

[Roger Chapman]

Are you sure you have the right explanation. I get a reduction in my water charge because I have proved to the water company's satisfaction that the rainwater from my roof doesn't discharge into the main sewer.

I was not asked whether the drive drained onto the road, It doesn't, the reverse is more likely and did happen before I put in kerb stones myself. During a recent cloudburst (best part of an inch in under 15 minutes) my neighbour's new shingle drive was largely washed onto his garden and his garage flooded. It doesn't help that the nearest uphill gully this side of the road is several hundred yards away.

[Andrew Gabriel]

It's a new-ish charge they're allowed to make (last couple of years). I didn't know they'd started doing this with residential properties yet, although they are allowed to. Initially, they were going for commercial properties, but the intention was always to include residential and other properties when they get round to doing the surveys on them. Some companies with large roofs or car parks where they don't handle all the water in their own soakaways have been stung for many thousands. It's a charge which is aimed at dissuading rapid run-off (blamed for some flooding), and paying for measures to handle it where it does occur. It will sting people who have concreted over their gardens without installing drainage and soakaways to handle the run-off.

[Anna Kettle]

I successfully challenged my charge and so did my mum. Their criterion was something like the water must discharge to a soakaway at least 5m from the road. A sketch map showing distances and loation of soakaway was enough to convince them

Anna

[Andy Cap]

Same here. Just sent in a rough plan showing the location of the two soakaways and the charge was dropped. No mention of distances from the road.

Andy C

[Stuart Noble]

I wonder what the water companies think of people pumping water out of their cellars. The particular street I'm thinking of obviously has deep cellars because of the high water table in the area but, after a couple of decades of mostly dry weather, it's easy to become complacent and think you have a permanently dry storage area.

[Andrew Gabriel]

Out of interest, what was the charge?

[RobertL]

I think we are charged about =A335 a year becuase the front roof drains into the road gutter. i wonder if I would be allowed to direct all the roof rainwater into the foul sewer 'included in the price'. it would be convenient becauase I want to stop using the victorian soak- aways that are basically under the house

Robert

[Mark]

It must vary from region to region, company to company then. Our water bill has always had this charge.

You can appeal against it (which we did) but you must show that none of your rainwater flows into public sewers. Therefore if water drains off your land onto public land by means of a slope or your rainwater goes into a storm drain then you have to pay.

[tim....]

AIUI, it isn't relevant which way the drive slopes and that you can show that it might not go into the drain, but just goes into the ground. What is relevant is that you can show that the water does, in fact, go somewhere else that *you* are responsible for in some other way, such as into a water butt.

tim

[Tinkerer]

Now where I live, in the borough of Spelthorne, which is inside the M25 ring, not just the surface water from the houses but even the roads go into soakaways. Thames Water have always known this but never volunteer the information, so unless you are aware you still fork out the extra for surface water drainage. When we all started claiming it back a few years ago, having paid for over twenty years, they claimed that by law they only had to refund the last two years.