Scandal of Sewage in our Village Streets

Your local Lib Dem Councillor, Roland Tarr, has spent much of the last four years working with the Parish Councils of Martinstown, Winterbourne Abbas and Winterbourne Steepleton taking a range of measures to dramatically reduce flooding.

They have worked closely with Dorset Council as the Lead Flood Authority, and have achieved much. As a result we have narrowly avoided having any floods over the past few years, in spite of particularly extreme weather conditions.

What has, however, been evident for some time is that the capacity of our ageing sewage and drainage systems are no longer able to cope with the amounts of water entering the pipes (public and private) from the fractured waterlogged chalk which surrounds them.

Cllr Tarr contacted senior officials and engineers at Wessex Water about these problems two years ago and they have since had a series of meetings in village halls and with the Parish Council members of all three Parish Councils. Wessex Water have explained the problems and put forward possible solutions. Some of the solutions involve local landowners, who have reacted positively and we are working with them on potential green solutions that could solve the problem in our villages.