A TOWN councillor insists he is still reporting the same blocked gullies in Middlewich now as he was when he was first elected in 2015.

Cllr Dave Latham told Monday's Middlewich Town Council meeting he still has to report issues about flooding at the Sutton Lane crossroads, Croxton Lane, Finney's Lane and near the Golden Lion and Morrisons.

He told members had reported these issues to Cheshire East Council several times over the years, but still finds himself making the same complaints.

Cllr Latham said: “It doesn’t get fixed, and it doesn’t matter how many times you log it, these issues have not been fixed for the last five years – because I have been reporting them every year.

“They know about these issues, they have not been fixed, and that is why I am calling [for this] as a matter of urgency now.

Northwich Guardian:

“It is not fair on the Middlewich people for them to continually report issues to councillors, for councillors to continually report these on as they should do, and they still don’t do anything.

“But they still expect us to pay our council tax – for Middlewich residents to shut up and pay up.”

Cllr Latham believes the issue stems from poor hedge and grass cutting, or grass which has been left to grow long being cut and allowed to die naturally, blocking up gullies.

Cllr Graham Orme echoed his concerns, insisting there are also two issues at Southway that have been reported.

Town councillors agreed to regularly provide updates on highways issues they have reported, and Middlewich Town Council will write to CEC, putting the 'highest pressure available' on borough chiefs to sort the problems out.

Middlewich's CEC members – Cllr Mike Hunter, Cllr Carol Bulman and Cllr Jonathan Parry – will also push the borough's highways team to resolve the issues.

Cllr Hunter said: “There has been a change of staff at highways, which has helped and we’ve not done too bad actually, I would imagine that the particular person is run off his feet with considerable amount of work and catching up.

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“But that’s still no excuse for these jobs not to be carried out.”

However, Cllr Bulman reminded members that CEC is grappling with the pandemic and a tight budget.

CEC stepped up work to clear gullies across flood-hit areas of the borough last year.

Issues can be reported online here.

The Guardian has approached CEC for comment.