A SENIOR councillor has called out Anglian Water’s claims there are no issues with Southend’s drains – after sea water began flooding a residential street.

Water from the Thames Estuary, complete with seaweed, began gushing into Victoria Road, off Eastern Esplanade, after pressure from the tides forced up a large concrete drain cover in the middle of the road.

The road was almost completely flooded between Shaftesbury Avenue and Retort Close before dying down towards 5pm, after which the fire service used a large hammer to knock the cover back into place.

Anglian Water arrived shortly afterwards.

Public protection councillor Martin Terry said it debunked Anglian Water’s claims there were no issues with its seafront drains and again branded them “liars.”

He said: “This proves my argument that the drains are completely inadequate – if it was raining, all these houses would be flooded as well.

“I report this about ten months ago and they said there was nothing wrong with the drains, which means they are liars.”

Resident Len Hyman, 70, said the issue had been an ongoing one.

He said: “It’s been going on for years, it’s never been this bad, but there’s always water coming up.

“The cover was already raised about two inches at 4am and I was woken up by van going over it – it was like a gun going off.”