A COUPLE in their 80s have been left to clear blocked drains outside their village home for more than a year after pleas by parish councillors to Somerset Council’s highways department fell on deaf ears.

Nicholas Bucknall and his wife Rosemary say they have suffered flooding of their property and a large stretch of road in Rooks Nest, Brompton Ralph.

Mrs Bucknall, aged 80, who has Parkinson’s, suffered multiple leg fractures in a fall outside the property as the couple tried to scrape mud away from the drains.

Mr Bucknall, aged 84, said: “Even after a light shower the water goes 400 yards down the road.

“There are two little drains and as soon as I clear them they get blocked again.

“The water has washed away the tarmac on some of the road.

“They keep saying they will do something about it but they never do.”

Mr Bucknall said he had made several telephone calls to Somerset’s executive councillor for highways but had never received a call back.

He said said the state of the entrance to his home had become so bad that waste collection crews were even threatening to stop emptying their recycling bins.

Brompton Ralph parish chairman Cllr John Elliott said the issue had been ongoing for more than 12 months and both his council and Mr Bucknall had written letters about it but ‘nothing is getting done at the moment’.

Cllr Elliott said: “They did make a half-hearted attempt to clear the drain outside his property but did not make a very good job of it.

“You have all the rainwater from the hill and if it does not go into that drain, it goes into his yard and floods his yard.

“This has been rumbling on for more than a year.”

The Free Press has asked Somerset Council for comment on the issue but did not receive a response.