The leader of Wiltshire Council has put on a hard hat and joined a gully emptying team to watch them in action on the streets of the county.

Wiltshire has six total gully tankers, the specialist vehicles needed to clear the debris which blocks gullies and causes flooding.

According to Cllr Richard Clewer, there are around 80,000 gullies across the county, 42,000 of which have been cleaned in the last year.

This comes after heavy rainfall and surface deterioration recently caused a councillor to brand the state of his local roads as “atrocious”.

The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald: Wiltshire has around 80,000 gullies across the county.

In the latest Cabinet meeting, Councillor Clewer told Wiltshire’s Liberal Democrat leader that the council was doing “everything” it can for drainage across the county.

Whilst on-site with the gully emptying team, he said: “The rain we’ve had has been hideous over the course of the last few months, but that means we have more teams to get out there and deal with gullies that are silting up with flow coming off farmers’ fields.

“We’ve actually got the capacity in place to get on top of this problem now, which is really good news.”

He reported that the council has invested an extra £1m into clearing more gullies and urged residents to report blockages using the MyWilts app or on the Wiltshire Council website.