Online forms: Flooding, and/or a blocked drain or missing drain cover

Use this form to report a blocked drain or gully which is causing, or could result in, flooding.  You can also report missing or damaged drain, gully or manhole covers. 

What causes a blocked drain?

During periods of heavy rain or extreme weather it will take longer for water to drain away as the main sewers which the gullies connect to are running at full capacity. Other causes include:

• leaves or other debris
• connecting pipes are blocked with debris or silt
• tree roots
• broken or cracked pipes

If the surface water has not cleared for some time and you consider it to be a danger, report it using this form. 

How can you help us?

• Don't tip waste such as concrete and oil into gullies as this can block the pipes and contaminate streams and rivers.
• We cannot carry out drain or gully cleansing work if there are cars in the way. If your car is blocking access then it would help us if you could move it.
• Do not report gullies that are not actually blocked as this can take important resources away from where they are actually needed.

All road gullies have standing water in them. This does not mean that they are blocked - this water acts as a trap to stop smells coming from the sewers.

Private land

If the drain is on private land you must contact the land owner. If you don’t know who owns the land, contact the Land Registry on 0844 892 1111 or visit http://www.landregistry.gov.uk/. 

Please don’t use this form to report:

• A burst water main, flooding due to a blocked sewer or water pipes – report this to United Utilities
• Flooding on the motorway – report this to the Highways Agency
• Flooding of rivers, streams or other watercourses – report this to the Environment Agency
• Flooding of canals – report this to the Manchester Ship Canal Company, the Bridgewater Canal company or the Canal and River Trust for the Sankey (St Helens) Canal.

If the blocked drain or gully is causing flooding inside a property, flooding which is causing damage to a property or flooding which is obstructing a road please call us on 01925 443322 so that we can deal with this as soon as possible.

To report a problem online you’ll need to tell us:

• What the problem with the drain/gully is
• As much information as possible about the location of the drain/gully
• Whether it’s on the public highway

You can report this anonymously if you wish, but you will need to provide an email address so that we can confirm we have received your report and tell you your reference number.

The data we collect from our online forms is stored for no more than six weeks.  However teams within the council may store your data for longer in order to continue to provide you with the service you have requested.  For more information see our website privacy policy.

Please note: For security reasons our online forms have a 10-minute timeout feature (per page of the form) - the details you have entered will NOT be saved if you take more than 10 minutes to type information into each page of the form.

Therefore if the details of your complaint will take a while to type, you may like to draft the wording before you begin this form, and then copy and paste it in response to the relevant questions.