Pensioner Jeffrey Dickinson is desperate to get rid of the water feature in his garden.
Every time it rains, part of the garden at his home at Woodland End, Lepton, gets flooded – and it seems nothing can be done to stop it.
The flooding occurs at the boundary fence between Mr Dickinson’s garden and that of his next door neighbour – leaving parts of both gardens a boggy mess and unusable for plants.
Mr Dickinson, 74, said he believed the flooding had got worse since a car park – known as “The Square” – was built on higher ground at nearby Highgate Lane.
He said he was convinced that rainwater seeping below ground down from the car park area was pooling in his garden and questioned whether adequate drainage had been installed when the car park was built.
The car park in question is sited between Lepton post office and Hadfield’s bakery and is in front of Lepton Methodist Church and a doctor’s surgery.
Mr Dickinson, a retired sales rep who also worked as an engineer at Birkby valve firm Hopkinsons, said: “About 20 years ago I noticed the ground in certain areas of the garden was getting moist. At the time I didn’t think anything about it.
“About 10 years ago the garden started flooding and about five years ago we started getting more flooding.”
Mr Dickinson said he had called out Yorkshire Water after the first few incidents and the company had confirmed that the water was rainwater rather than from a burst pipe.
“About eight years ago, I rang Kirklees Council because we were still getting substantial flooding,” said Mr Dickinson. “I was told it wasn’t Kirklees’ problem and there were no problems in the area in question. I was told it was my problem and I would have to fix it myself.
“I wrote a letter to Kirklees 12 months ago saying I was still very concerned regarding seepage and puddles in the area. Kirklees said it might be gulleys that required attention.”
A Kirklees Council Spokesperson said: “Kirklees Council has visited Woodlands End several times since 2012 to investigate the issue of waterlogged gardens.
We have carried out investigations of our highway drains and private drains close to the property and found no evidence of anything that could be causing the waterlogging.
Investigations found that the pipework serving the Highgate Lane area leads away from Mr Hutchinson’s house and isn’t linked to the issue.
We also work closely with colleagues at Yorkshire Water who are responsible for the public sewer network and they have carried out similar investigations and found no problems with the drains surrounding this property.
The council has provided advice to the resident about how he could investigate whether there are unmapped land drainage systems within his property boundary that could contribute to the problem. Should such a system be uncovered, we have offered assistance to help with further investigations such as camera work and dye testing, but this has not been requested so far.”
