Persistence pays off! MP praises councillors work on Parkside Road flooding

Kendal's MP Tim Farron has praised the work of local councillors Chris Hogg, Clare Feeney-Johnson and Shirley Evans who together with residents have been able to get the green light for a major scheme to fix the flooding on Parkside Road railway bridge.

The bridge was notorious with local residents to flood every time it rained. Chris had set up a petition which he took door to door, asking residents to sign. He also set up a Facebook group, which can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1526380757588034/

Local County Councillor Clare Feeney-Johnson was also pushing for action too.

Now the council has agreed to undertake major works, including:

• Construction of a small wall along the garden area to the Larch Grove side of the railway bridge to prevent silt / sand washing out of this area.

• The carrier drain that starts at A684 Sedbergh Road and comes down Parkside Road and then feeds down to the soakaways at the bridge will be intercepted at the junction of Larch Grove, and taken to an existing manhole in Willow Drive. United Utilities have given permission for this arrangement.

• Cleaning out the existing soakaways on South Lakeland District Council (SLDC) land. Once this is done and the source of the sand / silt eliminated, the soakaways should remain effective for a much longer period

At this stage the council do not propose increasing the size of these soakaways as the major proportion of the water feeding these will be diverted to Willow Drive and sand / silt should no longer be an issue. However if flooding is still an issue then they will look at that at a later date with the agreement of SLDC.

The work is currently planned to start on 15 September, but this is reliant on other works being finished.

Kendal Castle Councillor Chris Hogg said: "I'd like to thank Clare for her work on this important issue. I'd also like to thank all the residents who signed the petition, liked and became members of the Facebook group and in anyway contributed to this cause being kept high on the agenda. This really will be of benefit to so many people using this busy road and proves local action groups can work."

Tim commented: "I'm delighted that our campaigning has brought this about. The area around the bridge floods every time it rains. It's troublesome for cyclists, people walking to work and dog walkers. I'm delighted that Clare Feeney-Johnson, Chris Hogg and local residents working together have been able to bring about these changes, which I hope, will deal with the issue once and for all."

County Councillor Clare Feeney-Johnson added: "This is excellent news, this has been causing problems for so many people for so long. I'm just really pleased a solution has been found."