Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
RAW sewage from Park Road Crouch End, surfaces in Lordship Rec; council complacency
LONDON Centric reports today that a building in Crouch End is (unwittingly) sending untreated raw sewage into London's river system.
On this occasion, Thames Water is not to blame. Responsibility may lie with "dodgy builders and DIY plumbers".
The filth "surfaces in a local Tottenham Park, filled with sewage and wet wipes". The Moselle Brook flows from west to east through the Lordship Recreation Ground, which is the park affected.
Haringey Council is reported to have declined to identify the building in Park Road. This suggests that council officers have undertaken investigation in order to narrow down the source to a single road in the Borough.
London Centric's full story.
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Tags for Forum Posts: london centric, lordship recreation ground, misconnected drains, moselle, park road, sewage, wet wipes
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Maddy
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London Centric is a great local investigative news outlet - highly recommend subscribing to the newsletter
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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter
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Yes.
This matter is not glamorous, it is disgusting and it needs fixing. F.A.O. Cllr. Peray Ahmet (current council leader). Perhaps the London Borough of Culture 2027 will take some action to protect at least this public park from unwanted intrusion.
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Permalink Reply by Brian Mahoney
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Something tells me that this would have been resolved already if the sewage was flowing in the other direction and pooling in Priory Park for example.
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I'm not so sure, as Haringey Council often exhibits a Borough-wide disregard for the environment.
It appears that the council has not been as co-operative with journalists as they might have. Here's what the London Centric editor (Jim Waterson) had to say about their story:
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I thought people might be interested in how a story such as this one comes together... back in April we published a piece looking at the specific issue of misconnections in one corner of London. But the volunteers working on the River Brent and River Crane in west London, who have been doing the leading work highlighting this issue, say it was hard to make people comprehend the scale of the problem.
The issue is you just see stories about "thousands of properties leaking sewage" and none it feels real.
I challenged Rachel Rees, who spent most of this year working for London Centric, to find a single example of a misconnected pipe and trace its journey through the capital. This became one of the most infuriating projects we've done. Endless formal requests for information, tracing underground rivers, trying to convince authorities that we are trying to highlight an issue and get individuals to confront it. She had to put up with constant nagging from me to keep going. Eventually she found this location in Crouch End and managed to follow its journey across north and east London.
All in all this was an absolutely crazy amount of work over eight months to bring this single story to life.
Rachel has since left to join a niche news publication called the "Financial Times", having picking up a nomination for young journalist of the year for her work with London Centric. So this is probably her final byline here — and it's one of those that I'm really proud to publish.
[my bolding]
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Permalink Reply by Martin (Woodside)
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It's a common problem. Largely down to 'plumbers' who don't understand, or ignore the difference between storm drains and sewers.
The dark side to using cheap, unskilled labour.
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It's a London-wide problem, according to the article.
Whatever the cause, it's a potential health hazard.
If a property owner doesn't fix it—at the end of the day a local authority is supposed to pick it up. It shouldn't be minimised, which is what council's PR statement attempts to do. Although a common problem, London Centric wrote:
Haringey has 161 live identified misconnection cases, the highest of any London borough. One property in the borough has been continually releasing sewage for more than 16 years with no action.
I understand that councils have it in their power to get the work done, pay for a fix and put a charge on the property at the Land Registry. Or threaten the same.
Haringey's PR release seems relaxed and unconcerned. The council would like the buck to stop with Thames Water. I'll be surprised if anyone at the council steps forward and says, yes, this is my responsibility to take action.
Further, I will eat my hat if the named Cab Member or council officer then promises in writing that the work will be completed by x date, x being within six weeks of their statement.
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Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson
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I’m bit confused by the article. It says -
But also has this chart -
Am I missing something?
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The 136 in the chart are newly identified since 2020 (some of which will since have been fixed).
The 161 in the text are all of those that remain to be fixed, whenever they were identified, even 16 years ago.
Searching 'moselle' on HoL gives articles back to 2013 about the problem. At one time Alexander Primary school was misconnected, that was fixed in 2019.
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That adds up to 297 which is lower than Ealing and Enfield.
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Permalink Reply by Matt
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You don't add the two.
There are 161 live cases. These could have been identified at any time.
There have been 136 new cases identified in the last five years. Some of these will have been fixed, and some not (and therefore will be part of the 161).
One can only assume Ealing, Enfield, Harrow have done a far better job of fixing their misconnections?
If a block of flats counts as say 20 misconnections rather than 1, this might account for the numbers being brought down faster?
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Permalink Reply by Hugh
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This is a long-standing issue raised over the past decade or so by various members on HoL. It's great that Jim Waterson is using his weight to bring this to the fore.
It used to be the case that Thames Water advertised for the pubic to report misconnections, but they seem no longer to do so, They now only have this page of their website.
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THANKS Hugh; perhaps between HoL and London Centric, Haringey Council may give this even greater priority.
The Mayor of London says he wants to clean up London's rivers and the Health Secretary says he's keen on preventative measures.
Given that this is a matter of public health and the environment, I would not be surprised—in the run up to the May election—if it were picked up by the local Green Party as an issue to campaign on.
The council is likely to remain satisfied with their PR emission referencing Thames Water, with which "we work alongside".
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