Durley villagers grill Southern Water over pumping station problems

Around 50 people including Meon Valley MP Flick Drummond, Winchester Liberal Democrat election candidate Danny Chambers, Winchester city councillors and residents attended the meeting at Durley Memorial Hall.

Residents have been frustrated with the issues at Heathen Street Pumping Station. The meeting, on Friday, April 26, heard that residents have had to deal with burst pipes for around seven years.

The main issue is groundwater incursion to the sewage network. Andy Morris, Southern Water high impact team lead, said: “The pumping station had had a lot of work done on it to get it to around 26 litres per second. There is still more flow coming into the pumping station which is why it backs up in the non-pressurised side of it. However to ramp it up further, you're then forcing more sewage into the pressurised side which causes 'issues bursts' on the unpressurised side which is when we need to get tankers in. 

“On the pressurised side, we have done more than 1,000m of lining now and we've changed all the air valves. However the pipe is at full bore which has caused more bursts. 

“What we've got to do now is come back into the network, it's about 7km worth. We've got to go to the outer edge and work our way in to take out what we don't need from the pipe. This will cut down what is going into the station. We've got to take it out of the system which is quite an in-depth process.”

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The meeting's chairman Steve Delmege said: “We are where we are, I think we all agreed it's not acceptable, what is going to be done?”

The meeting heard that 2km of the pipeline had been investigated, with another 5km to go. Sam Cooper, sewer network manager, said: “There's more to do, we need to find the problem before we go after the funding.”

Cllr Jonathan Williams, whose city council ward includes Durley, criticised Southern Water's communication with Durley Parish Council. A previous public meeting was held in April last year, but Cllr Williams said he had been trying to arrange another one since September, but received no response.

He added: “The only way we were able to get you to a meeting was through an official complaint because nobody responded to emails for eight months. My emails aren't just for personal gratification, it's so I can inform the residents of Durley what is going on.”

Mr Cooper said: “Communication is key, you need a point of call to contact.”

At the end of the meeting, the Southern Water representatives said it would take three months to find the problems in the pipeline and decide what to do about them. 

Mr Delmege said: “We all have the same vested interest to get the problem fixed.”