Newmarket pensioner set to lose town home over flooding saga

A Newmarket pensioner is set to lose his home later this month after a decades long wrangle with Anglian Water over sewage flooding into his basement.

Seventy-year-old Neil Taylor-Smith has owned 4 Rockingham Villas in Church Lane for around 40 years and during that time he said his basement had been flooded at least 15 times.

The property was built at the turn of the 20th century with the 60 sq metre basement originally constructed as a Turkish bath to serve jockeys and visiting racing staff.

As a result Neil explained the basement had separate piping to the rest of the property which led to the main sewer in Rowley Drive.

“There was never a problem until the flats at The Pightle and at Arlington Court went up (circa 1988),” said Neil. “The developers promised to upgrade the sewer pipe but that work was never done and it was then the problem started.

"They just connected them up to the nine inch pipe which serves mine," said Neil. He said his neighbours did not have the same problems as their properties had no basements and like the remainder of his house did not connect to the same sewer pipe but he claimed the former McColls newagents and two neighbouring properties in St Mary’s Square with basements had also been flooded in the past.

“When the flooding first started I was in the process of converting the upper floors into flats to rent out,” he said. “Planning permission was granted and worked had started. I had taken out a second mortgage on the property to fund the work but because of the flooding and the added danger of unsafe gas mains and electricity supplies to the building the work stopped. Because I could not complete work on the flats which would have provided an income to pay off my loan, I could not make the payments and the bank is going to re-possess the house later this month. I will be homeless.”

He said over the past 25 years Anglian Water had sent out representatives to try to resolve the issue but they had never been able to come up with a permanent solution.

“On one occasion at the end of 2017 the basement filled with raw sewage two feet deep,” said Neil. “It took Anglian Water a week to attend this emergency in the meantime I had
manually emptied the room.

“They spent five weeks on the site working to eliminate the issue. A new drain was installed just a metre from my house which flooded eight days later.”

Neil said in 2022 he received correspondence from representatives of Anglian Water offering him £25,000. “That was for me to walk away,” he said “but this has cost me far more than that. It has cost me my home.

“The whole thing has been an absolute nightmare. I am currently living like an animal. Anglian Water have just kept kicking the can down the road I feel like they are waiting for
me to die.”

Anglian Water have been contacted for comment but have not responded.