It had occurred to me before actually. The property developer was
brought to task by other residents over several issues, including
flooding. Basically they built the entire site on a known ancient
floodplain, and within the first year nearly every house was under 3ft
of water. They then "diverted the source upstream", but still the
flooding came. Eventually the council took drastic action to dam the
source, and we haven't seen any flooding since.

Everyone round here is aware that the developers are a bunch of cowboys.
The state of our 'new' houses when we moved into them was pitiful, so it
didn't really surprise me to discover we were sitting on top of a clay
pit. I was angry, but not surprised.


and you blame all of this on the builders?

Who gave them Planning Permission? They may be 'Cowboys', but they didn't
give themselves Planning Permission. Perhaps you were not there at the time,
but were any objections lodged? Not only have I had a planning application
for a couple of blocks of flats turned down because of possible flooding if
the development went ahead, but I have caused the Council to withdraw a
large chunk of land they wishes to sell for building on, off the market
because of possible flooding. The two houses opposite me flooded to above
skirting board level 4 times in the first 16 years I was here. "Nothing can
be done, its the lay of the land" so said the Council and the Water
Authority. I fought to have the road surface re-aligned so the water could
run down the road instead of down their drives and flood them.

Sorry, you can't blame it all on the builders. Blame the Council, the owners
of the land and the people around for not shouting out in the first place.

Mike