Downpour floods shops

ANGRY traders in Uckfield this week blamed blocked drains for the flash floods which hit their shops on Saturday.

A torrential downpour on Saturday morning left shopkeepers with the familiar job of clearing flood water out of their premises.

For most of the traders affected, it was a grim reminder of the floods of 2000. Many pointed the finger at East Sussex County Council, the authority responsible for the maintenance of drains.

Peacocks, the clothes shop, was closed for most of Saturday after flood water got into the carpets.

Superviser Sharon White said: 'The rain came gushing down the High Street and seemed to be coming our way.

'The road filled up rapidly the water was coming up through the drains. The problem was all the rubbish in the drains they were still full of rubbish afterwards.'

The newsagents at 88 High Street narrowly avoided flooding after the owner, Sylvia Jenner, took evasive action.

She said: 'We managed to build up sandbags at the front of the shop. But the water was toppling over the bags. It wasn't the river that caused the flood this time, it was the lack of maintenance.

'There was a lot of water and it would have taken good drains to cope with it all.

'But if the drains had been in good condition in the first place the flood would probably have just affected the street.

'Other shops came off quite badly. So would we if it had been any higher.

'It (the rain water) was flushing all of the dirty, nasty contents of the drain out in to the street. There was an awful mess.'

She added: 'It was exactly like the flood of May 2000, which was caused by drains and not the river.

'It's a very unfair situation. It's not the most healthy thing to happen to food shops.

'We're regarded as a food shop as we sell sweets. There's a lot of money that goes out the window when this kind of thing happens.'

Boots the Chemist was closed for about half an hour while staff tackled the flood water and Oxfam was hit by around two inches of water.

Volunteer Lilian Henning said: 'I did think "here we go again"'.

A spokesman for East Sussex County Council said: 'The rain came down so hard that the drains just couldn't cope. There was nothing wrong with the drains in Uckfield at all, they just couldn't cope with the volume of water.'

The spokesman said the drains appeared to be blocked because rain had falled so hard it was pulling 'rubble and muck' down the hillside with it.

She added that all drains were cleared and jetted after the October 2000 flood and that regular clearings of gulleys had taken place since.'