Flooding - Junction of Tottenham HIgh Road & Broad Lane, London N15
Request ID: FOI-0592-2425 Date published: 10 June 2024
You asked
Dear Transport for London,
This enquiry relates to the location by the pedestrian crossing across Tottenham High Road adjacent to the junction with Broad Lane. This link on Google Maps will confirm the location I am referring to:
http://webdefence.global.blackspider.com/urlwrap/?q=AXicDchLDsIgFAXQ27gGd-DImEejQFNHTo3W-FkBqSk0BR8BbNLd6xkeVNisgMe6QvJLvXeU00zBjL7nT0nsqecAKc_N9XWTddOqVmPg8VQGT5Zn-k5wpcR8FCKYmMnE-H8m68W9C8ouSnfJXQ78fmoA2x3wA32hIYA&Z
The location is susceptible to flooding during and after heavy rainfall. Please provide:
1. The number of reports submitted through directly through TfL contact channels - e.g. Streetcare, TfL website form, call centre and social media channels (including direct messages) 2. The number of reports passed onto TfL from Haringey Council 3. The number of reports passed onto TfL from Thames Water 4. The dates of any visits to this location by TfL and their contractors where work was undertaken to repair, clean rather than just surveyed or assessed. Against these dates please summarise the work carried out.
Please break points 1 to 4 down by year from 2018 to 2023. In addition, as much as available since 1 January 2024.
We answered
TfL Ref: FOI-0592-2425
Thank you for your request received by Transport for London (TfL) on 18th May 2024 asking for information about flooding at the junction of Tottenham HIgh Road and Broad Lane.
Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act and our information access policy.
Specifically you asked:
“This enquiry relates to the location by the pedestrian crossing across Tottenham High Road adjacent to the junction with Broad Lane. This link on Google Maps will confirm the location I am referring to:
The location is susceptible to flooding during and after heavy rainfall. Please provide:
1. The number of reports submitted through directly through TfL contact channels - e.g. Streetcare, TfL website form, call centre and social media channels (including direct messages) 2. The number of reports passed onto TfL from Haringey Council 3. The number of reports passed onto TfL from Thames Water 4. The dates of any visits to this location by TfL and their contractors where work was undertaken to repair, clean rather than just surveyed or assessed. Against these dates please summarise the work carried out.
Please break points 1 to 4 down by year from 2018 to 2023. In addition, as much as available since 1 January 2024.”
I can confirm that we hold the information you require. Your questions are answered in turn below:
Question 1: TfL has received 35 reports about this location via the Streetcare reporting system since 2021 (note that the system only went live in 2019 but took a couple of years before it gained popularity). Of these, 12 related to flooding/drainage. These 12 are broken down by year as follows:
In regard to the other channels you cite, these communications would have been passed to our Customer Services team. However, the team is not able to determine how many such cases it has received without a disproportionate expenditure of resource. The request is therefore refused under section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act. Under section 12, TfL is not required to provide information if it would cost more than £450 to determine if the requested information is held, and to then locate, retrieve or extract that information from elsewhere. This is calculated at a rate of £25 per hour, equivalent to 18 hours work. In this instance the exemption applies because the way in which communications are logged in the Customer Services system does not allow us to narrow the records down to the precise information requested in an efficient way. Rather, we can narrow the records down to potential cases but would then have to review them all on an individual basis to see if they were about flooding at this specific location. Colleagues in the Customer Services team have run searches and estimate that for the three years for which they hold records there would be around 1,300 potential cases that would need to be reviewed. This is not possible within the costs limit.
Question 2: We are not aware of receiving any reports directly from Haringey Council, although it is possible that some of the reports received in relation to Question 1 may have been from the Council – either via the Streetcare system or with the Customer Services team.
Question 3: Thames Water have not sent TfL any reports about flooding at this location.
Question 4: Please see the spreadsheets attached which show the dates of inspection, defects found and work carried out. Note that you may need to expand the width of some columns to read the data in full. The information is correct as of 6th June 2024.
If this is not the information you are looking for, or if you are unable to access it for any reason, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Please see the attached information sheet for details of your right to appeal as well as information on copyright and what to do if you would like to re-use any of the information we have disclosed.
Yours sincerely,
David Wells FOI Case Officer FOI Case Management Team General Counsel Transport for London
