Drainage Services Across Cambridgeshire

Cambridgeshire's drainage problems are dominated by the Fens. North of Cambridge, much of the county lies at or below sea level and is drained artificially through a network of dykes, drains and pumping stations maintained since the seventeenth-century drainage of the Great Level.

Peat shrinkage is the defining issue. As drained peat dries and oxidises the ground surface falls — measurably, over decades — and buildings founded on piles stay put while the drains around them sink. That differential movement pulls pipework apart at joints and creates severe dips around March, Chatteris, Whittlesey and the villages of the Isle of Ely. Water tables are controlled rather than natural, so infiltration into damaged drains is constant. In Cambridge itself, Victorian terraces in Mill Road and Romsey drain through aged clay affected by tree roots, while the city's rapid growth has put new loading on old networks. Elsewhere the Gault clay shrinks and swells seasonally with the same joint-cracking effect.

We survey with CCTV to map falls and displacement precisely, because on Fenland ground the question is usually not what is blocking the drain but why the drain has moved.