THE DEPARTMENT of Infrastructure on the island says the island’s drainage systems have been ‘overwhelmed’ in the face of recent flooding.
Richard Pearson, director of highways, said: ‘The island’s drainage systems are really only designed for once a year, or twice a year events like these rainstorms, and we don’t have enough funding to improve matters.
‘We don’t have the funding just to maintain the roads as it is, without thinking about improvements or employing more staff.’
The recent flooding on the island and around the UK has brought several problems to travellers, causing the closure of many of the island’s roads.
‘There have been a few landslips during this time as well which hasn’t helped the situation,’ said Mr Pearson.
‘There was one at Laxey, one at Lhergy Cripperty and another on the coast road approaching Baldrine.
He also explained that there are some little improvement schemes in place already to alleviate specific areas.
‘We are aware of the problems people have had to endure at the Cooil Road roundabout for example, where there are some residual drainage problems, and we do have remedial work planned for that area.’
But the recent downpours have resulted in the department being inundated with a huge number of requests for road improvements.
Asked if the department was under pressure to cope with the recent heavy floodings, Mr Pearson said: ‘We are receiving hundreds of requests a week from people relating to road improvements, but we don’t have the funding for the maintenance, or the staff to handle them all. The drainage systems have been overwhelmed on occasions.
‘A lot of problems are caused by blocked gullies, there have been several cases of stones being washed out of adjacent land into the gullies in the roads and blocking them, which then causes the water to rise,’ said Mr Pearson.
‘Gullies are emptied regularly, but then in the bad weather they immediately fill up again with detritus and stones.
‘Potholes have been another problem, groundwater under the roads causes more potholes to appear, so that is another issue on top of everything else,’ he added.
Localised flooding has caused several road closures on the island.
The police said numerous roads had been affected and travel routes disrupted.
Lhergy Cripperty, Union Mills, was closed on Thursday due to a landslide and the area from Leigh Terrace to Cooil roundabout was closed on Wednesday due to heavy flooding.
Other roads hit this week by closures have included the Creg-ny-Baa Back Road, the Mountain road, the Tholt-y-Will road and the Sloc.
A bill that would give the Water and Sewage Authority powers to co-ordinate flood management, was given its second reading in the House of Keys last week.
