Draining groundwater onto roadway.

[amfisted]

During recent heavy rain I've noticed that groundwater is collecting in a trough alongside my front lawn, to the extent that it threatens to flood onto the surface. The excess water is backing up into a concrete channel which runs adjacent to the side path of the house, this channel's function being to collect and dispose of water from the path and from weep holes at the bottom of a garden retaining wall.

My preferred solution is to put a soakaway adjacent to the front garden wall at the end of the gully formed by the lawn trough and concrete channel, drill a hole through the wall to take a piece of 68mm PVC downpipe and drain the excess water onto the road. We're on a steep hill at the end of a cul de sac, and any such excess water would quickly drain away into a roadway gully.

Question is, is there potential for the above solution to break any water bye laws?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Deleted2797112]

I've no idea about water bye-laws but there's a similar situation a the end of my road, although I think it has come about accidentally rather than purposefully. On a steep hill, on a corner junction with a very sharp bend , water drains through a small wall over the pavement and onto the roadway. The camber seems to stop it draining away into the gutters. As soon as the temperature drops below zero, the whole lot freezes and the pavement and the junction are like skating rinks, even worse if it gets snow on top. It's a residential road in a small village so doesn't get gritted. I've phoned the Council numerous times about it but they're always busy keeping the motorways and major roads open apparently. Just something to be aware of.

 

[amfisted]

Fair point. Before doing the job, I'll pour a couple of buckets of water in the road at the point where the pipe will exit the wall, and make a note of where the camber and kerb edge takes it. If it runs straight to the next roadway gully, no problem; if it goes anywhere else I'll find a different solution.

 

[r896neo]

Exceptional surface water run off would be no issue but deliberately piping it out onto the road is dubious but unlikely to cause any sleepless nights to anyone.

If it seemed though that you were collecting ground water and distributing that onto the public highway, it would be heavily frowned upon.

 

[amfisted]

Thanks for that. It would probably only discharge a small amount of water and even then, only under exceptional circumstances when the volume and persistence of rain is such that other arrangements have failed. There's only a problem at the moment because heavy rain has been falling onto ground which is already saturated, and the soakaway that the previous owners installed is no longer working.

I'll put in the pipe, but if anyone toting official accreditation turns up and tells me to cap it off, I'll simply do so and seek another solution.