Tram works 'turned street into a river' claim residents

Published on Saturday 2 August 2008 11:07

TRAM works have been blamed for severe flooding on Shandwick Place after the street was turned into "a river" amid this week's torrential downpours.

Contractors removed a drain from the western end of the road, and the two remaining drains on either side of Somerfield failed to cope with the torrential rain.

Over a foot of water flooded the street following Tuesday's freak cloudburst which saw several millimetres of rain fall in under an hour. Council planners blamed the flooding on a "one in 100 year" event.

However, several inches of rainwater gathered again at the western pedestrian crossing during yesterday's relatively moderate downpours.

One long-standing resident said that the road has experienced similar downpours in the past but has never flooded.

Michael Watson, 40, an IT contractor, said: "I've lived here for 17 years and I've never seen the street turn into a river before.

There's a dip in the road outside the front entrance to the stairway where the water eventually gathered, and it didn't disappear for over 12 hours."

Neighbour David Mackie complained to tram company TIE about the flooding. He said: "It appears that the existing drains have been removed from, amongst other locations, outside my house at the pedestrian crossing opposite Stafford Street."

Walter Giudice, manager of neighbouring La Piazza restaurant, said that workers on site were warned the removal of the drains would cause problems.

He added: "We told them not to remove the drain months ago as the next nearest one is 100 yards up the road, but they insisted one was enough."

In response to complaints by residents, city centre councillors David Beckett and Joanna Mowat are demanding immediate action to rectify the problem.

Ms Mowat said: "Whilst I can accept that there has to be disruption and general inconvenience as a part of putting the tram in, I didn't realise that we were signing up to flooding people's houses."

Meanwhile, Councillor Beckett was also unconvinced that Tuesday's flooding was a freak event and called on TIE to take responsibility for their actions.

He added: "We are being told the flooding was caused by a once in a century meteorological event. I wonder then if we can expect Noah to be sailing down Princes Street anytime soon."

Michael Apter, owner of Paper Tiger on Stafford Street and chairman of the West End Traders Association, said none of his affiliated businesses reported any interruption in trade. However, the downpour happened shortly after 6pm when most of the shops would have been closed.

A TIE spokesman confirmed that they were investigating the incident in conjunction with their contractors Carillion, who were responsible for the utility diversions. He added: "We are confident that none of the work we carried out in the area recently could have been responsible for any flooding."