Drainage dispute flares again

Press, 6 February 1986, Page 7

Drainage dispute flares again

Differing interpretations of an Ombudsman’s report by the Christchurch City Council and a Hereford Street resident are at the bottom of a continuing debate about drainage in the street. Mr Allen Boyce asked the Ombudsman to intervene in a dispute he had with the Christchurch City Council about the installation of inverted siphons in the Hereford Street drainage system. Mr Bryce was concerned about flooding in the street. As a result of the Ombudsman’s report, the council decided in December to make bubble-up sumps standard for stormwater connections. The report said the sumps were an acceptable substitute for the siphons.

Mr Boyce delivered yesterday a letter to the council’s works and traffic committee which complained that the council had not installed the sumps in all the stormwater connections in Hereford Street between Olliviers Road and Linwood Avenue. The council’s deputy general manager (works), Mr Harold Surtees, said that the council installed three sumps in December as required by the Ombudsman. The report required the sumps at connections where there was a reverse gradient. Mr Boyce was under the mistaken impression that the sumps would be put in at all connections, he said. In his letter, Mr Boyce said the Ombudsman indi-

cated the council would install a sump at each inverted siphon between Olliviers Road and Linwood Avenue. He defined an inverted siphon as any stormwater outlet which turned upward more than its internal diameter. Because the council had raised the channel on both sides of Hereford Street by 100 mm, every pipe into the channel was an inverted siphon and should be replaced with a sump. Mr Boyce has written to the Ombudsman again complaining that the council has not installed sumps at each connection. Mr Surtees said sumps would be used when kerb and channel alterations were made and where ani inverted siphon would have been used.