Hi, I hope someone can advise as to what my next steps can be here:
We live on a main road in Essex. A few months ago water started to stream down the main road in front of the house and it seemed to stem from some sort of pipe leakage in the land between our house and the road.
We raised the issue with Anglia water. They said it is coming from the pipe that runs parallel with the road in front of our house and that is not their problem, Their inspector said it's from surface water from the main road which is Essex County Council's (ECC) problem.
ECC sent an inspector and said that the pipe is is broken (they put a camera down it) but said the pipe is to collect surface water from the house so is Anglian water's responsibility. They said they had a map that proved the pipe was under ownership of Anglian but to be honest, the map only shows that the pipe collects surface water. It doesn't say where from therefore it's not clear who owns the pipe.
So, no-one is claiming responsibility, it is leaking badly and frozen over which is a hazard in itself on the road.
We need to find out what purpose the pipe has, to collect surface water from the house or from the road. Then we will know who owns it and therefore who needs to make the repairs.
How do I get that info? It's not on our land searches or land registry. Both ECC and Anglian are washing their hands of it. The part of our garden that is directly over the pipe is beginning to sink too.
I hope this makes sense!!