Drains and gullies: flooding

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Overflowing road gullies (highway drains)

London Borough of Barnet as Highways Authority has drainage responsibilities for carriageways and footways. This is usually done through maintaining existing road gullies (or constructing new ones if required).

A road gully is the slotted iron grating situated in the carriageway adjacent to the kerb. The purpose of the road gully is to collect storm water runoff when it rains.

Report a blocked gully (drain)

If you see water flowing out of a road gully, it could be that it is blocked. You can report this to us online:

Report it

You can report a blocked gully by sending an email to HighwaysCorrespondence@Barnet.gov.uk, or calling us on 020 8359 3555 (office hours Monday to Thursday 9 am to 5:15 pm, Friday 9 am to 5 pm), emergency out of office hours call 020 8359 2000.

Storm events

In the first instance, if flooding poses a risk to life, get to a safe place and then call emergency services on 999.

The Environment Agency provides a free 24 hour service Floodline which gives information service for floods and flood warnings on. Telephone 0345 988 1188.

For advice on how to plan ahead of storm events, visit: How to plan ahead for flooding - Check for flooding - GOV.UK 

The highway drainage systems (gullies) are not designed to cope with heavy storms, so ‘flooding’ of the highway is expected during a storm event, but this will go down over time.

Although we accept that some road gullies may be blocked and need our attention, in many cases during storm events, it is found that the public sewers are unable to cope with the amount of water, this means that the water is unable to drain away.

If this happens contact Thames Water by calling 0800 316 98000 (24 hour service).

You should provide them with as much detail as possible, supplying date(s) and details of how you were flooded and ask them to ensure that these incidents are logged onto their “flooding history database” as this could lead to an improvement in the sewer system.  

For advice on driving through storms, or in rain and high winds, visit: Driving in severe weather - Met Office