Market Drayton · TF9

Emergency Drainage in Market Drayton

What to do first when a tank overflows, sewage backs up or a drain floods, and how to reach a local specialist once the immediate risk is contained. Serving Market Drayton and the surrounding villages, including Hodnet, Cheswardine, Hinstock, Norton in Hales.

Call 01743 562954 Describe your problem

Photo: Jonathan Hutchins · CC BY-SA 2.0

Some drainage problems can wait for a convenient appointment. Sewage backing up into a bathroom cannot. Neither can an overflowing septic tank or cesspit, a collapsed drain flooding a yard, or a treatment plant in alarm at a holiday let.

A drainage emergency in dairy country carries an extra dimension: the Tern catchment’s water quality is already under agricultural pressure, and the Environment Agency treats pollution here seriously. An overflowing tank at a farm near Hodnet or Cheswardine that reaches a field ditch is reportable — the hotline first, then containment. Stop water going into the system, keep stock as well as people away from what has escaped, and never let anyone into a tank, whatever has fallen in.

Dairy country means dispersed farmsteads and small villages, many never connected to a public sewer. Around Market Drayton it is entirely normal for a property to run on a decades-old septic tank, and the area has its share of cesspits too, installed where ground or watercourses ruled anything else out.

How emergency drainage works, in full →

Access and practicalities around Market Drayton

The country between the villages is crossed by narrow lanes busy with farm traffic, and many properties are reached through working farmyards. Milking times, moving stock and muddy gateways all shape when a job can happen, and tanker access here is best planned with the farmer rather than against them.

Local watercourses around Market Drayton

The Tern and its feeder brooks drain the whole district, and field ditches run along most boundaries. With dairy farming in the catchment, the Environment Agency takes water quality here seriously, and a leaking tank or a non-compliant discharge is not something to sit on.

What to do right now

Stop using water in the property. No toilets, showers, dishwasher or washing machine, because every litre that goes in has to come out somewhere
Keep people and animals well away from standing sewage, and wash hands and any skin that has touched it thoroughly
Never enter a septic tank, cesspit or treatment plant, and never lean in. These are confined spaces holding hydrogen sulphide and methane, and the air in them can kill in seconds
Keep tank covers closed and secure, and keep children and pets away from any cover that has been lifted or damaged
If sewage is reaching a ditch, stream, brook or river, report it to the Environment Agency incident hotline on 0800 80 70 60, which is staffed around the clock
If effluent has entered the house, shut off the affected rooms and keep it away from anywhere food is prepared or stored
Photograph the affected area before any clean-up, for your insurer and for whoever attends
Note when it started and what changed just before, because that is the first thing any contractor will ask

Around Market Drayton

As well as Market Drayton itself, the surrounding villages and farms are covered, including Hodnet, Cheswardine, Hinstock, Norton in Hales, Adderley, Moreton Say, Stoke on Tern, Childs Ercall. If you are somewhere smaller or somewhere between, get in touch anyway.