Tag: gully

April 27th – Prompted by what, I don’t know, but during the day several people reported that they’d seen a gully cleaner on the Lichfield Road at Sandhills. Since I’d been complaining about the state of the drains here for ages, I thought I’d check out the situation. Sure enough, about 60% of the drains are now flowing freely, with one flowing in reverse (clearly a blockage in the intermediate culvert). The worst ones were left untouched, as I guess they need the solid silt removing by some other means. The road had much less surface water, although it still wasn’t great, it was much better. There appeared, however, to be an issue with the other drains in the verge, which was contributing to the surface water considerably. All in all, not a bad result but it would be nice to see them all cleaned and back to functionality.

April 18th – A river ran down the A461 Lichfield Road at Sandhills after a moderate shower. Out of all the storm gullies on the Walsall bound side of the hill, only 2 were flowing freely, all the others were blocked with silt. It seems that Tarmac – the contractors looking after the roads for Walsall Council – don’t like to bother cleaning drains. I’m 100% sure that the jobs are passed on, but in four years, I’ve never got a gully cleaned out. I give up, to be honest. Most of the storm drains on Shire Oak’s main roads are blocked.