Many areas in West Dulwich that follow the River Effra have been designated by The Environment Agency as ‘Medium’ to ‘High’ Flood Risk Areas. This came to light after one resident saw his house sale fall through because of the designation. The cause of the potential flooding is ‘surface water’ caused by heavy rainfall combined with blocked drains.

Whilst undoubtedly we are experiencing more rainfall due to climate change, the biggest factor has been Lambeth’s failure to sweep up leaves during the autumn which causes the drains to get blocked. One resident in Tulsemere Road said that while he had lived here for over 30 years, the only time he had seen surface water flooding was within the last 4 years since Serco took on the street cleaning contract.

NAG raised a Freedom of Information Request (FOI) to ask about the cleaning contract. Lambeth confirmed that Serco do have a contractual duty to clear the leaves. They also said that Lambeth employs people to check that the work has been done. Clearly this system is not working given that NAG had to raise the issue once again with our local councillors in Nov 24 in order to get Serco to come and honour their contract.

We do not believe that residents should be seeing their insurance premiums being raised, or house sales falling through because of Lambeth’s inability to carry a basic service. Lambeth knows that the leaf fall will be a problem every year, and so it cannot be beyond their capability to plan for it.

Here is a map of the affected streets. You can check if your house is directly affected by putting in your postcode at the Government's flood risk monitoring tool.