00:00A flooded garden isn't an unusual sight after Storm Austin battered the county over the weekend.
00:06But for this Sheppie couple, they've been dealing with it for months.
00:09They discovered a leak in their garden 10 weeks ago and slowly it's rendered their garden unusable.
00:16Water guys were over the back of the fence and they were looking for a leak there because of the
00:21water running down that side of the fence. And one of them poked his head over and had a look
00:27and he said to us, you know you've got a puddle here. It started off as part of the garden,
00:33a third of the garden, then it went to half, then it went to three quarters and now we've got
00:38no garden.
00:40Southern Water have visited multiple times to assess whether the water is waste or fresh,
00:44but the messaging the couple have got hasn't made it any clearer.
00:48There's absolutely no communication from them at all. I've had two phone calls from them
00:53and that's in the last, what, three months. Not having updates, you know, or having somebody,
01:00a case officer, somebody that can actually, we can speak to regularly, I think it's ridiculous.
01:14When you call them up it says, thank you for saving water, every little bit helps. Hypocrisy.
01:21Meanwhile, they've had to fence off the garden, leaving them and their dog Dobby stuck inside.
01:27Poor Dobby, he had the zoomies one day and because the door was open and he ran indoors,
01:36it came out and went straight into the fence. Of course we're now coming up to the winter one,
01:43it's not going to be easy to take him out for walks because we're both unable to walk very far,
01:47so we have to use scooters. And where we used to walk him on the seawall, if it gets too
01:53muddy,
01:53we can't take him up there. So, because we'd let him off the lead there and he can run to
01:57his heart's
01:58content, but he can't even do that in the garden now. A Southern Water spokesperson apologised to them.
02:03They said their teams have been investigating since July, but as of yet have not identified the source.
02:09Sampling suggests the leak is clean water and they're currently excavating in nearby
02:13Thornhill Road to understand if it could be coming from there. They say they've reduced
02:18leakage by 25% over the past two years. They say they're grateful to the public for their support
02:23and are continuing to work around the clock to protect water supplies.
02:27In the meantime, Benji's zoomies will have to be restricted to indoors.
02:31Chloe Brewster for KMTV in Shearnass.
