Dredged Up: Why are Severn Trent’s buried documents missing this key detail?
...Not Worth The Paper It's Written On?
There’s something poetic — or pathetic — about a quietly buried, publicly issued document (how’s that for a paradox?) that aims to reassure residents while quietly tiptoeing around the elephant in the drainage ditch.
Earlier this week, in the course of my investigations, I stumbled upon a PDF from Severn Trent Water, from March 2023, titled “SVE-fDWMP23-L3-TPU Summary – North Notts” (catchy, I know). Buried deep in its bowels is a mention of Crowle, North Lincolnshire, alongside surrounding areas.
What’s missing?
Oh, only (practically) the entire field, adjacent to Windsor Lane, where they’re currently digging up and installing a new sewage treatment facility.
Oh, and the mystery drain — you know, the one visible on:
Land Registry title plans
OS maps
Government’s own interactive planning maps
The drainage board’s internal documents
…But apparently not on Severn Trent’s infrastructure plans.
Funny, that.
📌 Omission or Commission?
Take a good, hard look at the map on page 83 of the report. (highlighted in yellow)
Not one, but two watercourses — the now-infamous “Mystery Drain” and the clearly documented Wray’s Drain — which forms the boundary between the field being excavated and the adjacent farmland — are missing entirely.
Compare and contrast with the Government Map:
*Map of the field and the drain in question, located adjacent to Windsor Crescent & Windsor Lane, Crowle, North Lincolnshire DN17 4EQ. Note: location of the drain is arrowed in red. Taken from GOV UK website.
Also absent? The industrial-scale sewage treatment works Severn Trent began installing months earlier.
All that remains is a lone black dot for the existing Marsh Road treatment plant, and a pipeline that vanishes into nothingness.
This report was published in March 2023, months after surveys, excavations, and planning exemptions were already well underway.
So, what’s going on? A clerical slip? A cartographer’s bad day? Or a more deliberate attempt to sanitise the public record?
It raises the pungent question: Is this deliberate obfuscation, administrative incompetence — or both?
Either way — it doesn’t hold water.
📌 Riparian Drain, Who?
We’ve covered this before — the now-vanished mystery drain that everyone from North Lincolnshire Council to the Isle of Axholme Drainage Board has awkwardly shrugged away.
In Severn Trent’s 2023 report? Not. A. Word.
Yet the same company has since bought a slice of that very field (in October 2023) — with the drain on it. Under UK law, that makes them the riparian owner, and therefore responsible for its upkeep. The same field now plays host to industrial-scale earthworks with the potential to impact local flood risk. And guess who’s tasked with investigating local flooding?
You guessed it: Severn Trent.
Yes — they’re their own watchdog. (Woof.)
📌 Throwback to 2019: The “Forgotten” Flood Report
Let’s rewind to November 2019, when North Lincolnshire Council, acting as the Lead Local Flood Authority (LLFA), published a report in the aftermath of widespread local flooding.
In that report — quietly buried deep in the council’s archive like a time capsule no one wanted opened — it says:
"North Lincolnshire Council (NLC), as Lead Local Flood Authority (LLFA), is now working with Risk Management Authorities (RMAs) to investigate the causes of flooding and potential for mitigation against future flooding."
Who are these RMAs?
Let’s name names, shall we?
Severn Trent Water (yes, the same people digging up Crowle)
The Environment Agency
Anglian Water
Highways England
Internal Drainage Boards (including Doncaster East and North East Lindsey IDBs)
Water Level Management Boards (including the Isle of Axholme & North Notts WLMB)
In other words, everyone and their bureaucratic uncle. And yet somehow — nobody notices when an entire drain disappears from their maps, and a sewage treatment facility vanishes from Severn Trent’s own summary report.
🚨 Conflict of Interest? What Conflict?
North Lincolnshire Council.
The Drainage Board.
Severn Trent Water.
They all sit around the same proverbial table when it comes to Risk Management Authorities. Add to that two ward councillors with ties to the Drainage Board, and you’ve got yourself a drain storm of potential conflict.
If this was a sitcom, it’d be called:
“Everybody Knows… But Nobody Talks.”
🚨 Conflict of Interest: Confirmed?
Let’s put it this way:
You’ve got:
Severn Trent Water laying pipework in a field they purchased.
A mystery drain and a named drain (Wrays Drain) on that land that appears on every official map — but not on theirs.
The same Severn Trent Water responsible for helping investigate flood risks.
Ward councillors sitting on the drainage boards tasked with oversight.
Council officers saying “nothing to see here, folks!”
All listed under the same Risk Management umbrella in the council’s own flood report.
What we’re witnessing isn’t just conflict of interest — it’s conflict of credibility.
💩 So What’s This Report Good For?
Toilet paper, mostly.
Hence the graphic.
Because if a flood mitigation document can omit the very infrastructure it ought to assess, and fail to acknowledge a literal sewage plant installation, then residents are right to ask:
“What is going on here?”
📎 Coming Up Next…
We’ll be circling back to the Freedom of Information requests, unanswered letters, and a few more revelations that didn’t make it into Severn Trent’s bedtime reading.
Until then…
Flush responsibly.
💧💩
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👉 If you feel strongly about the issues raised in this article, then consider sending an e-mail to Crowle Town Council (clerk@crowleandealandcouncil.org) or North Lincolnshire Council (customerservice@northlincs.gov.uk) or even Councillor Julie Reed, (Cllr.juliereed@northlincs.gov.uk), and ask them why are residents being silenced?