00:00I beg to move that this House has considered the role of water companies in new housing
00:04development planning.
00:05Thank you very much Mrs Leal, but it's a pleasure to serve under your chairship today.
00:10Now it's something of a cliche for a Liberal Democrat to be talking about sewage, but today
00:16I'm breaking the mould and instead of talking about sewage in seas, lakes and rivers, I'm
00:21talking about sewage in people's homes and gardens.
00:25Now buying a home in the UK is not easy.
00:28You spend years and years saving penny after penny, and when you finally complete and sign
00:33on the dotted line, you're both relieved and delighted, and what you are not expecting
00:38is to be forced to become an expert in complex regulations around drainage and the planning
00:44process.
00:45And most of all, you're not expecting raw sewage to start backing up into the manhole
00:50covers in your garden, in the drains, or worst case scenario, in your downstairs loo.
00:56But unfortunately that's what some of my constituents have had to deal with when buying
00:59or living near newly built houses in North Shropshire, and I think the whole House should
01:04be asking themselves how any water company, developer, conveyancer or local authority
01:11could think that this situation was acceptable.
01:14Now during my time as MP for North Shropshire, there have been multiple incidents where constituents
01:19have been putting a troubling petition of the sewage network failing, and to be honest
01:23I'm quite angry about the lack of progress in dealing with the issue.
01:27Just two weeks ago, I attended a meeting with residents from a village in my constituency.
01:32The village has seen a relatively large amount of development in recent years, and it's low-lying
01:36and on a gentle slope.
01:38Southern Trent, the water company, has adopted the drainage system from the new developments
01:43there, so this is not a case where the dodgy developer has failed to build suitable infrastructure.
01:47But unfortunately, the village is an old medieval village, and the existing combined sewer
01:52infrastructure is inadequate to deal with the prolonged rainfall and the additional
01:57homes connected to it.
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