Floods nightmare is ruining my business

Published on Friday 11 January 2008 09:15

THE owner of a newsagents that floods each time there is heavy rain today hit out at city council officials for failing to take action.

John Frost, who owns Barr's at the bottom of Leith Walk, said blocked drains on the street had led to rainwater "bottle necking" outside his business. Heavy downpours across the city forced him and his staff to spend several hours yesterday sweeping excess rainwater out of the shop.

Mr Frost said he had lost hundreds of pounds in trade as only a handful of customers had braved the water to enter the shop.

"We only had three people come into the shop all morning before we finally got it under control," he said. It seriously affected my business, as the pavement was virtually unpassable.

"This scenario has been going on for around four years now. Every time we have a heavy rainfall, the drains get blocked and all the water gathers at the foot of Leith Walk.

"It gets so bad that people can't walk through it and, as the pavement slopes towards my shop, the water flows in and floods the store. We've been flooded like this three times already in the past month."

The heavy rains also affected the roads between Leith Walk, Great Junction Street and Duke Street, as well as a junction on nearby Dalmeny Street.

Community leaders said they had often seen heavy flooding in the area during bad weather and said that more maintenance was needed to prevent it from happening again.

Roland Reid, secretary of Leith central community council, said: "We see this sort of thing happening whenever there is any heavy rainfall and it makes some streets a no-go area for pedestrians.

"The foot of Leith Walk is particularly bad, as the drains get clogged up and the water covers the whole of the pavements. It's very bad for pedestrians and some shops in the area are worried that the water will come into their premises. It's a problem that seems to be caused by insufficient maintenance on the drains."

However, a city council spokeswoman said maintenance crews had been at the scene in the past week.

She said: "This is a sensitive location near a busy pedestrian junction and our staff cleaned three of the flooded gullies on November 29. A clean-up team also attended the junction on Wednesday, when all the surface water was cleared from the pavements. However, although the drains have been cleared, it is likely that recent excessive rainfall has caused this new flooding."

Yesterday's heavy floods caused disruption across the Lothians.

However, the city council and emergency services said they had received no emergency calls regarding heavy flooding in Edinburgh.

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