legal right to drain over private land

[Tindall6]

Can someone help please? Can a developer building 24 dwellings position a large soak away to the sewerage system to the entire development draining and discharging over our land without our permission? The new houses are about 100 m away and the water from the sewerage will be pumped up a hill to the intended soak away and the fall of the hill will mean that the water will then run down on to our land bearing in mind that it is a clay hill and the soakaway is just 2-3 m away from our boundary. The water in view of the fall of the hill will drain across our land into the river Avon which we front. Thank you

[Peridot]

Hi Tindall6,

Not generally my area but I found this site that explains soakaways and the types you can have, which appears to depend on soil types. The mound soakaway would appear to be what is being used by the construction company in your instance? https://www.wte-ltd.co.uk/soakaways.html

There are a number of claims that could be made in relation to the land, should an issue arise. However damage or loss of enjoyment would have to be demonstrated to be in with a chance of successfully bringing a claim against the other land owner and the discharge of water onto your land on it's journey to the Avon.

Nuisance claims are recognised as being either private -
interference with the use/enjoyment of land causing injury; public nuisance—an unlawful act/omission causing widespread harm or;

‘the rule in Rylands v

Fletcher

’ (‘non-natural’ activity on the defendant’s land escaping and causing harm).

The Rylands v Fletcher rule may be a possibility IF certain criteria are met. It would not be until there was a problem that you could potentially bring a claim.
The criteria that are considered include the following:-

the nature of the 'things' brought onto the land (natural or non-natural);
the foreseeability that the 'thing' could cause damage;

•

whether or not there has been an 'escape' and

•

the remoteness of the resulting damage.

It is a technical area and one that I would strongly recommend obtaining some face to face advice from a property litigation specialist if any damage is caused to your land from use of the soakaway.