RESIDENTS of an Oxford street are fed-up after years of sewer flooding problems that have not been properly resolved.

Campbell Road was submerged in a mixture of rain and foul water on Sunday as sewers and drains overflowed on Saturday night due to heavy rainfall.

Resident Eylan Ezekiel’s garden was completely flooded as well as his office located at the back of his garden, with water only beginning to go down yesterday.

His neighbours, including ecologist Hugh Warwick, rallied together to save furniture from being damaged.

Although Thames Water says the flooding was due to the 'sheer amount' of rain 'overwhelming' its sewer system, Mr Ezekiel believes the real problem is the system itself.

The 49-year-old said: "It's not about lots of rain, we can handle that, but the foul water is an issue that happens again and again. There's an ongoing problem that Thames Water hasn't fixed.

"The last time an engineer came down, he said the pipes were installed in the 40s for one toilet and one bath that people didn't use often and even though there are more people living here now, the system has the same pipes.

Oxford Mail:

"It needs to be changed and it costs money, but that's what we pay for."

He said that in the past during heavy rain the brook at the end of the road often bursts its banks, but this had not happened this time.

He added: "It's purely a Thames Water problem."

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Refitting his garden office - which was only built recently - will be expensive especially as the building will have to be lifted higher so as to prevent it from getting flooded in the future.

Mr Warwick tweeted photos of water bursting onto Campbell Road at the weekend, alerting Thames Water to the problem.

He said: "Luckily our road has a great WhatsApp group so a message went out and I was wading in my neighbour's garden at 8.30am (water over my knees) helping them lift a sofa in their garden office.

Oxford Mail:

"But I have lived here over 20 years and whenever this sort of thing has happened Thames Water have promised to fix drains. Clearly they have not."

Mr Warwick says the heavy rainfall was not 'unprecedented' and that 'there must be a problem' with the drains.

After the flooding, Thames Water said: "Engineers did visit yesterday afternoon and confirmed that this was due to the sewers being overwhelmed by the heavy rain.

"We will be revisiting to look at the issue but there is a big backlog of work on this so it may take longer than usual."

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With foul water pouring into the neighbourhood, there were also environmental concerns about residue that Thames Water had not cleaned up.

Oxford Mail:

The water company told this paper that a team were scheduled to clean Campbell Road yesterday afternoon.

More rain is expected this evening in Oxford and into the early hours of the morning.

A flood alert has been issued for the River Thames and streams in the city.