Councillor Tannia Shipley has spent many years trying to alleviate the flooding problem experienced under the railway bridge at Station Road, Esher. Residents, and in particular, commuters will be aware that this has been largely achieved – the area no longer floods on a regular basis except when there is extreme rainfall over a short period or heavy persistent rain.  The area under the bridge is low-lying and water therefore inevitably flows to that point.  There is a long drainage channel that runs from Station Road to the Lynwood area and several land owners are responsible for different parts of the drainage system … which makes life rather difficult.

In recent months, Cllr Shipley has been concerned about the excessive overgrowth on the embankment that runs from Station Road to the Hampton Court Way.  A part of the drainage channel runs at the bottom of that embankment – some of the channel is an open ditch and some of it is culverted.

After many telephone calls and email exchanges, Network Rail has cleared the part of the embankment that falls under their remit (as shown in the photo).  They have removed brambles and self-seeded saplings and they have inspected the whole length of the ditch and found that the water is flowing.  This is very good news.  Pressure will now be put on South West Trains who are responsible for the part of the embankment that has not yet been cleared of overgrowth.