Tankers arrive in West Sussex town as road closures in place

Road closures are in place in Southwick, with tankers, cones and fencing also pictured today (Monday, March 4).

After last week’s heavy rainfall, Southern Water said it is working hard to prevent flooding and ensure sewers are not overwhelmed.

A spokesperson for the water company said: “Due to the consistent heavy rainfall, the ground in the area has become saturated and the local drains and sewers inundated with surface water run-off.

"Groundwater has risen to exceptionally record high levels following one of the wettest winter periods on record in 2023/2024.

"This is putting significant pressure on our local sewage network. We are making every effort to protect customers and the environment through this exceptionally challenging period.

"We have and continue to check in with affected customers on site and support them. We continue to thank them for their patience during this exceptional period.”

Southern Water teams have been on site since Thursday, February 22, implementing a ‘range of flow management solutions’.

These include: over pumping from a foul sewer to a larger foul sewer, tankering away flows and regularly checking the sewer network to ‘mitigate the issues’.

A spokesperson added: “We have used tankers to remove the excess sewage and take it back to our treatment works. Traffic management is in place to slow the flow of vehicles and for health and safety reasons.

"The waterlogged ground and excessive heavy rainfall is the reason for this incident.

"We apologise for the inconvenience caused to residents and wish to assure customers that we are doing everything we can to mitigate the flooding. We’re sorry for any disruption this has caused."