I AM happy to pass on what I regard as excellent news.

Sycamore Roadand Ellingham Avenue in March have suffered from serious flooding for almost thirty years. Unable to find a permanent solution various agencies, Anglian water, FDC, the environment agency and CCC have worked on this problem on and off over a period of time. New pumping stations, extra drainage features on the roads, continual jetting and servicing of the sewerage system. This resulted in Ellingham Avenue pretty much being sorted about 5 years ago. Sycamore Close however wasn’t. When I canvassed there in 09 every resident soon told me of their exasperation on this matter. Since being elected I have worked with my fellow ward councillors Kit Owen and Jan French to resolve this issue. The problem was as nobody could understand why this was happening, a solution couldn’t be found and all of the agencies had taken to blaming each other.

As a team the three of us were united in re-examining every approach to find a resolution. My personal thanks go to Trevor Watson and Gary Garford two officers at FDC who persisted in persuading Anglian Water and Cambs County Council to re-open their files. Relying on old survey information they said insisted it couldn’t be their fault and yet nobody was actually able to produce this survey. By persisting we were able to convince CCC to commission a new survey. This was passed onto us in Early 2010. The result of which was a staggering revelation. An entire mains drain, on everybody’s drawings had never been built. After thirty years the cause of so much misery was finally discovered.

Now the good news. After a lot of false starts, hopes and fears of funding failure, I can confirm: CCC with approximately �200,000 of their money and an additional �103,00 grant from Defra are starting work on this project in four weeks time. I would like to express my thanks to those mentioned involved, who have finally succeeded in resolving this problem. I would also like to think that I could extend apologies to the residents on behalf of the organisations concerned that were unable to resolve this sooner.

COUNCILLOR STEVE COUNT

Via e-mail