Residents in the Guthrie Terrace/Dalhousie Road area will have noticed on Monday evening, after the rain, that a large lake of black smelly sludge appeared on the north side of Dalhousie Road by the traffic bollards at the foot of Guthrie Terrace. Within a very short time the traffic had moved a significant quantity of the sludge onto the pavement. Come Tuesday morning the water had disappeared but the pavement remained covered in the sludge.
I contacted the council's roads maintenance partnership about it and by Wednesday morning the two gullies at the location had been inspected, cleaned and jetted. It turns out that there is a blockage in the carrier pipe at the rear of the footway which will have to be excavated to identify the cause. This will be programmed but discussions have to take place about traffic management to allow the works to proceed so no timescale is available yet.
The drainage system here is not combined with the sewer therefore the sludge should only contain a mixture of road detritus and organic material from nearby hedges and trees. The pavement was pressure cleaned by the environment department this morning.
