Puddles in Tottenham Court Road

• I REFER to Richard Walker’s letters on January 10 and March 19 this year, headed “Water doesn’t defy gravity” and “Water will not flow uphill” respectively.

The photographs accompanying letters clearly show that the road surfacing beyond the edges of the “puddles” are in reasonable condition: they also suggest localised failure of the road surfacing is responsible for the formation of the “puddles”.

The localised depressed areas where the puddles have been created are likely to have formed some time after the resurfacing was completed and the road was in use.

The most likely locations of the “puddles” are where previous excavations had been carried out by statutory bodies (water, sewerage, cable contractors, etc) during the maintenance of their apparatus.

Except in rare cases where the local authority can demonstrate that a public utility company had carried out work at the location where “failure” has occurred – not long before resurfacing of the road surface was undertaken – and that “failure” was due to poor workmanship by the public utility company, responsibility must lie with the council and/or its highway maintenance contractor.

In the long run, the quickest and most effective way of dealing with this matter is to carry out repairs as soon as possible, in order to prevent adjoining and contiguous areas of the road surface becoming affected, thus eliminating annoyance and damage to the public.

DUGALD GONSAL
Chartered Engineer, NW3