Highway flooding due to lack of ditch / watercourse maintenance adjacent to Candys Lane junction.

Watercourse to north of A31 is within National Highways responsibility (as watercourse was relocated during trunk road construction) - as a result of lack of maintenance culverts from Brog St and Candys Lane are unable to discharge surface water leading to prolonged highway flooding - both of National Highways trunk road and Dorset Highways network (Candys Lane and Brog St). We (Dorset Highways) have cleared and jetted all ditches and pipes that form part of our drainage apparatus - we have sent enforcement notices to riparian owners for ditch clearance - which has been completed - the missing link in this is the section of watercourse under NH responsibility. For some considerable time there has been plans within NH for a ditch / watercourse clearance scheme here but so far it has been delayed and as a result we (DC) have had a part of our network regularly subject to prolonged flooding, receiving high numbers of public complaint and a high demand on work force and maintenance budget to deal with this issue (emergency call-outs, jetting, ditch clearance, road surface defects etc). We are trying to be a good partner to National Highways but the time has come to request that these works are undertaken as a matter of urgency to alleviate the flooding and resultant pressure on our network. Please contact me as a matter of urgency to discuss progress of this scheme as Dorset Council has very limited appetite for pursuing this request through our Legal and Democratic Cervices team.